KUALA LUMPUR: Fifteen out of the 37 women candidates in the Johor state election this time won the seats they contested in while all seven women fielded by Parti Pejuang Tanah Air (Pejuang) and Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) lost.

Malaysian United Democratic Alliance (MUDA) candidate Amira Aisya Abd Aziz, 27, who contested the Puteri Wangsa state seat for the first time, is among those who shone when she managed to win the constituency with a 7,144 majority after obtaining 22,884 votes to defeat five other challengers.

This makes Amira Aisya, who is also MUDA secretary-general, the only candidate to contribute a single seat to the new party that is contesting in the election for the first time.

Perikatan Nasional's (PN) Alwiyah Taib also stole the show by dashing Barisan Nasional's (BN) hopes of wresting the Endau state seat when she managed to retain it with a majority of 3,041 votes to defeat four other candidates.

Alwiyah had previously won the seat at the 14th General Election (GE14) on a BN ticket before joining Bersatu.

The women candidate fielded by BN this time also performed "excellently" when nine out of 14 of them won, with Nor Rashidah Ramli and Rashidah Ismail among the victors when they retained their Parit Raja and Pasir Raja seats respectively.

The other BN women candidates who came out tops were Hasrunizah Hassan (Pulai Sebatang), Fauziah Misri (Penawar), Norlizah Noh (Johor Lama), Sahrifah Azizah Syed Zain (Mahkota), Khairin-Nisa Ismail@ Md On (Serom), Haslinda Salleh (Tenang) and N. Saraswati (Kemelah).

Pakatan Harapan (PH), meanwhile, won four seats through its women candidates, namely Johor DAP Women's Publicity secretary Marina Ibrahim (Skudai), Gan Peck Cheng (Penggaram), Ng Kor Sim (Jementah) and Liow Cai Tung (Johor Jaya).

The Johor polls saw an increase in the number of women candidates compared to the 28 during GE14 in 2018, with BN fielding the most number of women candidates, namely 14, followed by PH (eight), PN (six), Pejuang (four), PKR (three) and MUDA (two).

In the Johor polls, BN won 40 out of the 56 state seats contested, thus enabling it to form the state government.

-- BERNAMA