When parliament convenes next month, 22 of the 79 members will be women, nearly a third of MPs and a historically huge proportion.
But more than half secured their seats through a gender quota mechanism that the Malta Women’s Lobby has said was “manipulated”.
The criticism followed a decision by PN candidate Janice Chetcuti to drop out of a casual election knowing she would make it to parliament through the quota mechanism – Carm Mifsud Bonnici was elected on her district instead.
The mechanism is also being challenged in court by independent candidate Arnold Cassola and separately, by ADPD, which says it specifically excludes third parties and independents. Most notably, ADPD candidate Sandra Gauci obtained more votes than a PL candidate who got into parliament through the mechanism.
But according to Carmen Sammut, who chaired the technical committee behind the reform, most of the criticism stems from lack of awareness about Malta’s electoral system.
She said several gender-balancing mechanisms abroad – such as having a fixed percentage of female candidates on the party’s ballot list – would not work here. How could a party stop a valid male candidate from contesting the election to retain the quota, she asked.
on the other hand, lawyer and former Nationalist MP Fanco Debono also entered the debate earlier this year arguing that the mechanism has failed.
In an opinion piece published in Times of Malta in March, he argued that the mechanism had failed to attract more women candidates and served to bloat an already oversized parliament.
Momentum for women
“The remit of the technical committee I chaired was not to change the electoral system. A different mechanism might be required if the electoral system were changed to better reflect today’s reality.
“We could not wait for a constitutional reform and needed to come up with a mechanism that could be applied to the current system. We merely added one temporary step: MPs are elected through first-count votes, then through casual and by-elections, then through a majority corrective mechanism and finally the gender balancing mechanism.”
The mechanism can only be triggered if two parties are elected to parliament because our electoral system is based on a ‘50+1’ rule, she explained.
“For some time, women’s representation in parliament remained stuck at around 13 per cent. This has now gone up to 27.8 per cent.
“Once we reach a critical mass of 33 per cent, the mechanism will be needed less and less, as, most often, incumbents are re-elected, and we should be seeing more women elected on their own steam.”
For some time, women’s representation in parliament remained stuck at around 13 per cent. This has now gone up to 27.8 per cent
Once we reach a 40 per cent representation, the mechanism will no longer be needed, Sammut said.
“We had been running on the spot for decades. This was a big sprint forward. I’m elated that the mechanism, which was proposed following 75 years of status quo in parliament, has given us that push to create momentum.”
When the committee drew up the proposals, it did not just suggest numeric amendments, Sammut told Times of Malta.
“We need to ensure that this higher women’s presence in parliament is reflected in the drafting of policies and legislation. That is why, apart from a more family-friendly parliament, one of the
things I would like to see is a cross-party women’s caucus to ensure that the mechanism is truly effective.”
Emma Portelli Bonnici: Mechanism is 'flawed'
The PN’s Emma Portelli Bonnici was one of the women whose chance of getting elected through the quota mechanism slimmed when Chetcuti opted out of the casual election.
Yet, she does not believe the mechanism backfired, acknowledging the need of some kind of system that would increase female participation in parliament.
She was against such a mechanism at first. “But over the years I came to realise that if we didn’t go for some gender-balancing mechanism, by the time I was 60 there would still be a severe lack of women in parliament.
The mechanism itself is flawed: gender balance should be ensured before, not after the fact
“In the absence of everything else that could increase the participation of women in politics, such as a family-friendly parliament and adequate pay, all of which should have been tackled in previous legislatures but were not, then yes, we need quotas – at least temporarily.”
However, she believes the way the mechanism was implemented and “abused” was wrong. The mechanism itself is flawed: gender balance should be ensured before, not after the fact, she argues.
In her view, it should first be ensured that a good number of women are on the ballot sheet.
Then, the electorate should be asked to choose a fixed percentage of MPs from a list of women candidates and a fixed percentage from the list of men.
She also points to “misinformation” perpetuated by a number of male candidates from across the board who urged the electorate to vote for them as “women would get elected through the mechanism anyway”.
She said she disagreed with Chetcuti’s decision because it ran contrary to the spirit of the mechanism, but “it was her prerogative and I respect her right to choose”.
Sandra Gauci: ‘Undemocratic system’
The ADPD’s Gauci, excluded by the mechanism since she did not contest with a major party, pointed out that the constitutional consultant to the reform committee was a man.
She said Malta’s system was flawed. In some countries, the parties promoted women before an election, by ensuring a set percentage of the candidates on the ballot sheet were female.
“This way, the electorate can democratically choose their candidates. The local mechanism has undemocratically increased the size of parliament with additional MPs that the electorate did not choose.”
The masculinist mentality in parliament is also reflected among the electorate, some of who do not believe women are up to the job
So while she believes in the need for some sort of gender-balancing mechanism or quota, she says the onus should be on the parties to ensure balanced representation.
She is one who believes the mechanism backfired: people voted for men “thinking women would get elected anyway”.
“Not only did the mechanism not reach the goal of a 40 per cent female representation, but it reinforced the notion that women are not capable of being elected on their own steam and need to be propped up.”
She described the mechanism as “tokenism” that did not tackle the root of the problem of shortage of women in parliament.
Parliament was “masculinist” and the female MPs who made it through seem to be “partisan yes-women”, she said, citing the case of Chetcuti.
“She prioritised the party over fellow female candidates.”
“The masculinist mentality in parliament is also reflected among the electorate, some of whom do not believe women are up to the job and even harass candidates on the street and from behind their keyboard,” Gauci said.