Former prime minister Joseph Muscat has called for a reform that would see the presidency rotate between a man and then a woman.  

In a long-winded post on Facebook on Wednesday, Muscat said the appointment of the president should alternate between a man and a woman as a clear signal of the country's commitment to promoting female participation in public life. 

President George Vella’s five-year tenure ends in 2024 and speculation has already started mounting over who should replace him.

Malta has had two women presidents in the past: Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca, who served between 2014 and 2019, and Agatha Barbara, who served as president between 1982 and 1987. 

Following reforms in the appointment process, the government will now need the support of the Opposition to secure a two-thirds parliamentary backing for the next person appointed as head of state.

In a post he himself titled “progress does not come on its own”, Muscat weighed in on the result of the first-ever use of a gender mechanism for parliamentary elections.

Twelve women were given parliamentary seats earlier this week after the so-called gender corrective mechanism kicked in to add more women to both sides of the house.

The system, which has inflated Malta's parliament to 79 MPs, has been met with criticism from smaller parties, who say it is discriminatory, as well as former politicians such as Franco Debono.

Muscat, who resigned in disgrace in 2019, said he remembered when he had first started working for the Labour Party, women would complain about the lack of female participation in politics.

Agatha Barbara was appointed president in 1982. Photo: DOI

He said he had been met with no support for the gender mechanism proposal when he had first come forward with the idea.

“In Malta’s parliament today we have 23 women, that’s 29% of the MPs. This means that we have almost made it at the 33% critical mass and a step closer to the equal representation rate of 40%,” Muscat wrote.

Without the gender mechanism, only around 16% of MPs would be women, he said.

“Now it is time for more clear signals,” Muscat, who back in 2012 had pledged to make his government the "most feminist in history", wrote.

This, he said, could come in the form of a system that would see every other president be a woman.

"We shouldn’t have a woman appointed every 30 years simply as a symbol,” Muscat wrote.