’Tis the season to be jolly, party and switching off from the routine for everyone else. For the political junkies, like me, it is a time to discuss what the political class ought to be planning to do throughout the new year.

Electoral reform should be high on their agenda if they are serious about making amends to the current system.

My first article in this series focused mainly on the need to reduce the number of electoral districts from 13 to seven (Gozo remaining a separate region). My suggestion, which I failed to mention, was to elect 10 MPs from the six districts in Malta and seven (currently five) MPs in Gozo.

I will be revisiting this suggestion in another piece as there is still more to explain why this change is necessary.

Today, I will be putting up for discussion another proposal that may be controversial.

When mentioning the term controversy in politics one would assume that the lack of agreement would be along party lines. Well, yes, most controversial reforms, especially regarding the electoral process, would see the two main parties holding a different position from one another.

We will also discuss these eventually but the controversy I am highlighting today cuts across party lines. I am referring to the issue of the gender mechanism.

Through this mechanism, in the last general election the parties co-opted six women MPs each.

The Labour MPs elected through the gender quota – clockwise: Cressida Galea, Abigail Camilleri, Alicia Bugeja Sant, Naomi Cachia, Davina Sammut Hili and Amanda Spiteri Grech.

Well, here is the thing. This reform did not go down well at all with the electorate.

The arguments put forward at the time were that the gender mechanism will create unfair competition.

Moreover, the way the law was enacted was flawed and received negative feedback from many quarters including the OSCE itself.

It is not the purpose of this article to discuss whether the sunset clause of 20 years should be brought forward or scrapped altogether.

What I wish to put forward today is a proposal to reform the system to ensure that the mechanism works in the best possible way and for the purpose it was meant when established.

The first question that was raised when enacting the law was why we need the gender mechanism.

The answer to that question was that women were not elected in sufficient numbers as they were facing a number of hurdles, not least the issue of incumbency, which saw aspiring female candidates competing against established MPs, predominantly males.

The Nationalist MPs elected through the gender quota – clockwise: Eve Borg Bonello, Julie Zahra, Janice Chetcuti, Bernice Bonello, Paula Mifsud Bonnici and Claudette Buttigieg.

The reasoning behind the reform was to give women an equal opportunity as their male counterparts to become incumbents themselves.

I am sure a number of the women MPs elected through the mechanism will make it on their own steam come next general election- Hermann Schiavone

A number of women candidates in the past and in the last general election did not require this mechanism to make it to parliament.

I have to mention here great women like Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca and Giovanna Debono, who not only did not require the gender mechanism to make it to parliament but garnered the most first preference votes from their respective parties behind only their party leaders.

Yes, they both were special women, and one could argue that their success was not replicated by many others. But let us get back to the issue.

Here is the crux of the matter.

Now that the current 12 women MPs elected through the gender mechanism have become incumbents themselves, should they avail themselves of the mechanism a second time?

By the next election, they will have been MPs for a whole legislature.

They will have had time to prove their worth, as some of them have already done.

Will they require the mechanism to get back in?

In the beginning of this article I did mention that this is a controversial matter. I can imagine a number of current women MPs from both sides of parliament raising their eyebrows when reading this piece.

Should we consider reforming the system in a way for one to avail of the mechanism only once and give the same chance to others in the following general election? I say yes, as the purpose of the mechanism would have been achieved by allowing a person to become an incumbent.

I am pretty sure that a number of the current women MPs elected through the mechanism will make it on their own steam come next general election.

For these, the mechanism worked perfectly. For others who failed to grab the opportunity incumbency offers, tough luck.

They would do well to let others have the same opportunity.

There is another matter which requires reform. The OSCE pointed this out, as I did when I was an MP discussing the amendment in parliament. As things stand today, the gender mechanism only kicks in when two parties are elected but not in the event when a third party makes it to parliament.

This is wrong and we must amend this anomaly... as with many other matters, which I will be putting forward for discussion in the coming weeks.

In the meantime, I wish you all a Happy New Year

... and let’s get on with it.

Hermann Schiavone holds a doctorate in political science.