PN endorses gender corrective mechanism to increase women MPs

The Nationalist Party executive committee has agreed with a proposal to have a constitutional corrective mechanism that will allow the number of women MPs to be increased by a maximum of 12.

In a statement on Thursday, the PN said it agreed with gender balance and for this to be achieved a corrective mechanism will have to be introduced.

"For this to happen as early as possible, we agree that we need to resort to a corrective measure to increase the number of female parliamentarians. Besides this measure, we need to strengthen a culture in favour of equality and female participation in all sectors of life, including parliament," the statement read.

The government had appointed a technical committee that drew up a detailed proposal on how the number of MPs of the under-represented sex would be increased by a maximum of 12 - six MPs on either side of the House - to achieve better gender balance.

PN leader Adrian Delia had appointed Graziella Attard Previ and Alessia Psaila Zammit to the bi-partisan committee that was discussing the matter. Attard Previ and Psaila Zammit presented their conclusions to the PN executive, which agreed with the corrective mechanism.

The PN added that technical aspects to the mechanism are yet to be cleared but the discussion within the technical committee had matured.

The PN executive also expressed its disappointment at the resignation of Marthese Portelli as PN MP and thanked her for her participation. It also thanked Angelito Sciberras for his role as head of the PN's electoral commission. Boris Scerri, who had been the party's treasurer in the past, would take his place.