Joseph Muscat Calls For Presidency To Alternate Between Men And Women As He Defends Gender Quotas
Former Prime Minister Joseph Muscat has proposed that the role of President of the Republic alternate between a man and a woman every five years.
In a post defending his decision to introduce gender quotas for MPs, Muscat said the time has come for more “signals” in favour of gender equality.
“A clear example I have in mind is for the role of President of the Republic to alternate between a man and a woman rather than to appoint a woman every 30 years as a symbolic gesture,” Muscat said. “It would be a new record and make the PL movement proud.”
After the controversial gender quota rule came into force for the first time ever yesterday, Muscat insisted this was the right decision.
He said the same arguments that are currently being made in favour and against quotas have been doing the rounds since the 1990s, when he had just started militating in the PL and the party decided to introduce gender quotas for the party’s executive.
“Every Women’s Day, we would hold an activity where everyone would complain about the lack of female representation,” Muscat said. “Without fail, Renee Laivera would argue that a corrective mechanism is necessary to get things moving. On the other side, an argument would be raised, often by women, that education is necessary and that the likes of Agatha Barbara, Marie Louise Coleiro Preca, Helena Dalli and others didn’t need ‘quotas’.”
“Toss in the phrase ‘women of substance’, as though all men had substance, and it would be the same monotonous recipe every single year.”
“[Former Prime Minister] Alfred Sant had tried to change this but his government didn’t last long. This, along with divorce, was a reform that was placed on the agenda in the mid-90s but the fact that there wasn’t a PL government for a whole generation meant others didn’t implement these changes and the country lost time.”
“Alfred carried out this reform successfully within the PL and now there is practically no need for a mechanism for the executive, after the furore that erupted after the late Tonina Farrugia defeated her husband Nettu by quota.”
Muscat said he was resolute to introduce a ‘corrective mechanism’ after becoming Prime Minister in 2013 but that he barely had any support within the Labour Party.
“Men were scared of losing their seats and many of the few woman MPs started taking the position that they didn’t need a mechanism to get elected,” he said.
“I met up with practically all MPs to convince them and an agreement was struck based on two principles. Firstly, no one should alter the people’s choice and the mechanism would add MPs instead, which would have meant Tonina would have joined Nettu instead of replacing him. The second point was that this wasn’t a ‘woman’s quota’ but a corrective mechanism that would apply to all genders.”
Muscat thanked the people who made the gender quota reform possible, naming Helena Dalli, Julia Farrugia Portelli, Miriam Dalli and Rosianne Cutajar from a political aspect, Jonathan Attard and Austin Bencini from a legal point of view and “above all”, university lecturer Carmen Sammut, “who never lost heart”.
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