Malta’s female MPs have weighed in on the poor performance of women in the general election, less than a year on from the introduction of a gender corrective mechanism to the parliamentary system. 

So far, only five women have been elected to parliament, down from the seven in 2017. Miriam Dalli, Alison Zerafa Civelli, Julia Farrugia Portelli and Graziella Galea were elected after the initial count, while Rebecca Buttigieg has already won her casual election after becoming the only candidate in the race on the 9th. 

Malta has one of the lowest rates of female representation in parliament and the introduction of a gender mechanism will help boost that number by another 12 seats. However, questions will now be asked about whether political parties are doing enough to promote women in the party and why the electorate continues to vote for men in general elections. 

“Having just five women elected (so far) is disappointing to say the least, especially given the emphasis placed by parties on the importance of female representation in Parliament,” Parliamentary Secretary Alison Zerafa Civelli told Lovin Malta. 

“As the Labour Party, we do not just promote female representation for the sake of ticking boxes, but because we believe that more women in Parliament means a greater wealth of experiences and knowledge to shape our laws and policies. “

“The Labour manifesto pledges to consult with the public on a possible future electoral reform – within this context, I would say we definitely need to re-evaluate the gender-corrective mechanism, as well as the possibility of other measures to encourage more women to become politically active.”

“At the end of the day, however, we must address this issue from its roots, and see why politics is still considered a boys’ club.”

PN MP Graziella Galea agreed, expressing her concern that more women weren’t elected directly on the respective districts. 

“To date, only 6% of the elected members of parliament are women. This is far from the desired 40% and the mechanism will help to lessen this concern. Hopefully, in the future no such mechanism will be required for women to be represented in Parliament,” she said.

However, Galea was clear that both parties needed to do more to attract female candidates who “the electorate can trust”.

“Some women need more encouragement and support throughout the years and the electoral campaign so that they can reach out more to the electorate. We also need to eliminate the stigma that partly still exists, though at a much lesser extent, that women are not fit for some positions,” she said.

Minister Miriam Dalli made it clear that we would need to wait until casual elections before really examining gender representation in parliament. However, she did look at the positive side of the result.

“A deeper analysis shows that the women who contested on the PL ticket obtained almost 20,000 first-count votes, which compares very well with the 14,000 first preferences obtained by women PL candidates in 2017,” she said.

“This shows that the number of PL voters whose first preference was a female candidate has gone up by 43%. This despite the fact that 12 out of our 16 female candidates contested the general elections for the very first time.”

“Although only three female PL candidates made it past the post, it is worth noting that three other female candidates achieved very solid results with first count preferences exceeding 1,000 votes.”

“We knew from day one that things were not going to change overnight. As we wait for the casual elections, the culture change that we have been pushing for to see more women in leadership positions has started to bear fruit as more voters are choosing to vote for women.”

“The gender mechanism is one of the tools that will help strengthen representation in the highest institution of our country by giving visibility to capable women who will have the opportunity to work and deliver.”

Minister Julia Farrugia Portelli did not reply to the questions sent. Questions were sent before Rebecca Buttigieg was elected.

What more could be done to improve female representation in parliament?