Women candidates rise overall as PN numbers fall and PL almost doubles its tally
Of the 162 candidates standing for election, 46 are women
More women will be running for a seat in this month’s election, with the increase entirely driven by a sharp rise in women standing on a Labour ticket, while women candidates for PN and smaller parties dipped.
The final list of candidates, released on Monday evening by the Electoral Commission, shows that women candidates remain heavily outnumbered by men across all parties.
Of the 162 candidates on the ballot list, 46 of them, roughly 29%, will be women.
This marks a slight improvement on 2022, the election during which a controversial gender quota mechanism was used for the first time. In that election, just 23% of candidates were women, with 41 female candidates standing for a seat.
PL women candidates double, PN contenders dip
The list shows that not all parties have boosted their list of women candidates equally.
Labour will have almost twice as many women on its ticket as it did last election, now fielding 28 women, up from 16 in 2022.
The Labour ticket will feature all six women who made it to parliament through the gender quota last time around, namely Alicia Bugeja Said, Cressida Galea, Abigail Camilleri, Amanda Spiteri Grech, Naomi Cachia, and Davina Sammut Hili.
It also includes several household names, from Miriam Dalli to Rosianne Cutajar, Rebecca Buttigieg and a return for former parliamentary secretary Deborah Schembri.
Several other women will be standing for election for the first time, including former party president Ramona Attard, who was coopted to parliament throughout last year and animal rights commissioner Fleur Abela.
In total, Labour will be fielding 10 fewer men than in 2022.
PN, on the other hand, will be fielding an identical number of men to 2022, but four fewer women, with last election’s 17 women candidates now dropping to just 13.
Like Labour, PN’s list features several women previously elected to parliament through the gender quota, including Eve Borg Bonello, Janice Abela Chetcuti, Paula Mifsud Bonnici, Julie Zahra, and Bernice Bonello.
The only exception is Claudette Buttigieg, who announced she would be bowing out of politics last summer after saying she would refuse to be re-elected through the quota.
It also features other women who were prominent throughout the past legislature, including the shadow environment minister Rebekah Borg, the shadow minister for public cleanliness and climate change Eve Borg Bonello and shadow culture minister Julie Zahra, as well as former mayors Graziella Galea and Graziella Attard Previ.
Several other women previously on the PN ticket will not be contesting this time around.
Francine Farrugia, a candidate in 2022, resigned from the party after she was charged with embezzling €2.3 million in funds from MCAST, while lawyer Emma Portelli Bonnici stepped away from politics after narrowly missing out in 2022.
Nevertheless, PN’s party list will also feature some new faces, including the vice-president of artist lobby MEIA Marilena Gauci, igaming official Annabelle Cilia and St Paul’s Bay councillor Rachel Williams.
For others, such as Miriana Calleja Testaferrata De Noto and Norma Camilleri, this will be their first general election, having previously stood on the party ticket in 2024’s EU election.
PN’s slender list of women candidates could raise questions over whether the party would have enough candidates for the gender quota mechanism to kick in, should many of them be elected on their own steam.
Few women across smaller parties
Meanwhile, the share of women standing for election with smaller parties also failed to rise.
Last election featured four women on the ticket of right-wing party ABBA, none of whom are re-contesting now that the party has faded from view.
Meanwhile, the sole female independent candidate from 2022’s election, Jane Chircop, will not be standing this time around.
Instead, new conservative party Aħwa Maltin will be fielding three women Josephine Borg, Marianne Sacco and Iris Vella on its ticket.
ADPD, meanwhile, remains the only political party in Malta led by a woman, with party leader Sandra Gauci running for her second general election. The party will also be fielding academic Melissa Bagley. Both candidates had also stood for election in 2022.
Activist Mina Tolu, who identifies as non-binary, will not be running this time around, having attempted a run last election.
Momentum, on the other hand, received flak early in the campaign for not fielding any women at all in its seven-person list, with party officials attributing this to “personal circumstances”.