‘Revolutionary’ Impact Of Gender Quotas Will Be Felt In The Future, New PL MP Predicts
One of the first ever Maltese MPs to be elected to Parliament via gender quota has predicted that the real impacts of the system will be felt in the distant future.
“I was always politically active but, as a girl watching Parliament I could could the number of role models on one hand,” PL’s Naomi Cachia said on ONE TV’s Pjazza this evening. “Let’s not undervalue the impact that the visibility of woman MPs will have in a wider aspect.”
Cachia said that while people may not yet realise the impact that a Parliament in which 28% of MPs are women, she believes it will have a “revolutionary” effect in the future.
“I’m pleased to be part of it and pleased that the PL is once again pushing change forward.”
The gender quota mechanism has resulted in the election of six PL and six PN MPs to Parliament, boosting the percentage of woman MPs to historically high levels.
However, it has proven to be extremely controversial, with several people warning the system harms democracy by impinging on the people’s choice of representatives. PN’s Eve Borg Bonello, one of the 12 MPs elected by quota, has argued that the quota system ended up backfiring on woman candidates.
Criminal lawyer Franco Debono has warned that the system, adding more MPs to an already-oversized Parliament, will see the House become an “incubator of clientelism”.
Meanwhile, ADPD has criticised the system for only taking into account woman MPs who run with PL and PN and are using this fact in a constitutional case arguing the electoral system is discriminatory against third parties.
Independent candidate Arnold Cassola has opened a separate constitutional case against the gender quota system, warning it discriminates against woman candidates who don’t contest with PL or PN.
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