A Wave Of Change Has Come: These Are All Of Malta’s 22 Women MPs Who Will Represent The Nation
Never in Malta’s democratic history have so many women represented the nation in Parliament.
With 22 MPs, women now make up 27.8% of Parliament, which is significantly higher than the 13% of the last legislature but just below the EU average of 33% as recorded in 2020.
Overall, PL women politicians performed better than their PN counterparts.
Four women were originally elected on 27th March, out of whom three – Alison Zerafa Civelli, Miriam Dalli and Julia Farrugia Portelli – were with PL, with Graziella Galea the only female PN MP.
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In the casual elections, PL elected four more women MPs – Rosianne Cutajar, Katya Degiovanni, Rebecca Buttigieg and Romilda Baldacchino Zarb, while PN elected two – Graziella Attard Previ and Rebekah Cilia.
With ten women MPs at the end of the causal election process, the number was identical to what it was after the 2017 election, although interestingly only two of them (PL’s Julia Farrugia Portelli and Rosianne Cutajar) were elected in both elections.
With too few women elected, the gender quota mechanism kicked in for the first time ever, with PL and PN electing six MPs each according to the number of votes they received by the time they were knocked out of the race.
PN's Claudette Buttigieg has returned to Parliament via gender quota
Almost all of these 12 MPs are completely new faces, except PN’s Claudette Buttigieg who will serve her third successive legislature, and PN’s Paula Mifsud Bonnici, who will return to Parliament for a second legislature after missing out last time round.
With a PhD in Biodiversity Management and Human Ecology, new PL MP Alicia Bugeja Said has a particularly unique career background for a Maltese MP.
She is joined by economist Cressida Galea, teacher Abigail Camilleri, lawyers Amanda Spiteri Grech and Naomi Cachia, and EU funds officer and Floriana mayor Davina Sammut Hili.
Besides Buttigieg (a university lecturer) and Mifsud Bonnici (a lawyer), PN’s MPs elected via gender quota are lawyer Janice Chetcuti, teacher Julie Zahra, and law students Bernice Bonello and Eve Borg Bonello.
Meanwhile, although ADPD candidate Sandra Gauci got more votes than PL’s Davina Sammut Hili, she has been denied a chance to enter Parliament seeing as the gender quota system only applies to PL and PN candidates.
Maltese women politicians have finally been given a golden chance to show their value to the nation and try and convince skeptical citizens that the controversial quotas may have been a good idea after all. Will they seize the moment?
Which of these women MPs stand out most to you?
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