The election of four women in casual elections among Labour Party candidates on Tuesday has moved up the order of unsuccessful female candidates who can now be declared elected in terms of the gender quota mechanism.

Both the PL and the PN are being allocated six additional parliamentary seats for women, selected from among those who came closest to being elected at the general election. 

The six Labour candidates expected to make to the House are fisheries researcher Alicia Bugeja Said (third district); economist Cressida Galea (first district); teacher Abigail Camilleri (13th district) lawyer and former journalist Amanda Spiteri Grech (fourth district); lawyer Naomi Cachia (seventh district) and Floriana mayor Davina Sammut Hili (first district).

Of the 139 general election candidates, 33 were women – 17 from PN and 16 from PL. Just four women were directly elected, three from the Labour list and one PN – Julia Farrugia Portelli, Alison Zerafa Civelli, Miriam Dalli and Graziella Galea (PN).

Another four Labour candidates made it to parliament through the casual elections held on Thursday – Rebecca Buttigieg, Rosianne Cutajar, Katya De Giovanni and Romilda Baldacchino Zarb.

In terms of the new law, if one gender makes up less than 40 per cent of the available seats in parliament, a maximum of 12 seats, six on either side of the House, will be added for the minority gender.

This process can only happen once the casual elections are completed and the full list of elected MPs is known.

The casual elections for the PN candidates will be held on Tuesday.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.