Rohani Abdul Karim


Rohani binti Abdul Karim is a Malaysian politician. She is currently the Member of Parliament of Malaysia for the Batang Lupar constituency in Sarawak, representing the United Traditional Bumiputera Party. In 2013 she was appointed as the federal Minister of Women, Family and Community Development in the Barisan Nasional coalition government, having previously served as Deputy Minister for Domestic Trade, Cooperatives and Consumerism and Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Agro-based Industries.

Early life

She was born on 3 January 1955 in Simanggang, Sarawak. She received her early education at SMK Methodist, Sibu. She has continued her education at Universiti Pertanian Malaysia in the field of agro-industry. She then resumed her studies until she obtained her Master of Business Administration from Ohio University, Athens, USA. She has three children.

Participation in politics

Become Member of Parliament and Cabinet Minister

In the 1990 general election, Rohani was elected as a candidate and won the Santubong parliamentary seat.
In the 1995 and 1999 general election, she was still able to defend the Santubong Parliamentary seat. In the 2004 general election, she had switched to the Batang Lupar, Sri Aman, Sarawak, where she was born, and won uncontested.
She once again won the Batang Lupar parliamentary seat against opposition party representatives in the 2008 general election with 70 percent of her vote in favour of her. Later she was appointed Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Agro-based Industry by the Malaysian Prime Minister Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.
On April 9, 2009, Malaysia's sixth Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak, who just held the leadership of the country at that time, entrusted her to take over Tan Lian Hoe's duties as Deputy Minister of Domestic Trade, Co-operatives and Consumerism.
On May 15, 2013, she was appointed Women and Family Development Minister in the Ministry of Women, Family and Community Development. She started her official duties as Minister on 17 May 2013.

Batang Lupar Member of Parliament

She is famous for her people-friendly personality in the Batang Lupar area. Although she was always in Peninsular Malaysia for her role as Deputy Minister before, it did not give her reason to visit the people of Batang Lupar. She is also an IT-friendly because of frequent updates on her Twitter page as well as her Facebook page.

Election results

Honours