Parliament starts discussing historic law to ensure more women are elected MPs

A gender corrective mechanism to ensure more women are elected to parliament will serve to create a "snowball effect", Prime Minister Robert Abela said.

He was introducing the parliamentary debate on the constitutional and legal changes that will allow the number of MPs from the underrepresented sex to be increased by a maximum of 12 after the electoral process is concluded.

Women have historically been underrepresented in parliament with little if no progress in 70 years. Only 26 women have ever been elected to parliament over the years with women making up only 13% of the House's current composition.

The proposed corrective measure will come into play if the number of MPs from the under-represented sex amounts to less than 40% of the total.

EXPLAINER: How to get more women in the House

Abela said the changes will motivate more women to submit their candidacy for the general election. 

“We have to push towards a cultural shift, and the mechanism will serve as a catalyst for this change,” he said.

The Opposition has said it will support the legal changes but will also propose amendments.

Abela stressed government’s willingness to act on the gender imbalance, saying the topic of low female representation has been the subject of debate for years.

“Despite all the debates, look around us, the number of female representatives is very low, and we must change that,” he said. 

He also cited the Labour Party’s credentials in introducing equality legislation throughout the years.

“We were on the forefront to give woman the vote in 1947. We elected the first female MP and the first female minister. We are a government which believes in female leadership,” he said.

He also expressed his wish of having the mechanism working so successfully, that in the future it would be used to help male candidates get elected. 

“That would signal a resounding success,” he said.

Abela used the occasion to speak of his government's work over the past year and did not hold back from passing snide remarks at the Opposition.

“This was a year of big decisions. In no other time during Malta’s recent history have the country’s leaders been tasked with so many important decisions,” he said. 

Abela said a lot still needs to be done to ensure equality among the sexes in the country. 

“We need to address the issue, as we should address a number of other issues, but this mechanism will serve to set an example of how we can adopt a hands-on approach to equality,” he said.

Opposition to vote in favour 

Opposition MP Claudette Buttigieg said that while opposition will be voting in favour of the constitutional change, amendments will still be presented.       

“While we agree, it is important to address some irregularities,” she said. 

Such irregularities include the possibility of the mechanism no longer being in play once a third political party is elected into the house.

“So, women suffer when a third party is elected?” she asked.

Buttigieg also hit out at the prime minister for being “happy” that the mechanism will be used come next general election. 

“Mechanisms should come into play when we fail. I am getting the sense that the PM is happy that we are failing,” she said. 

At the start of her speech, the Nationalist MP also called out the prime minister for speaking about issues unrelated to the gender mechanism. 

“I think he wants to justify yesterday’s MaltaToday survey,” she said.