Jakarta – Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri has criticised a new law, requiring at least 30 per cent of parliamentary candidates in elections be female, as demeaning to women, a report said on Sunday.

"I do not agree, because such a quota can give rise to the notion that women can only exist [in politics] because of charity," President Megawati was quoted by the state Antara news agency as saying in Manado, North Sulawesi.

Speaking to members of her Indonesian Democracy Party of Struggle (PDIP) there, she said that women should be elected into parliament on their own merits.

The Indonesian Parliament last month passed a new electoral law that provides that at least 30 per cent of the candidates running in parliamentary elections, including the next one set for June 2004, be female.

Many have hailed the quota as an "affirmative action" that would be good for the advancement of women in this country, the world's largest Muslim-populated country.

Just 45 of the Parliament's 462 elected members are women and Mrs Megawati herself was initially barred from the presidency partly on the grounds that a woman should not lead the world's most populous Islamic nation.