178 candidates seek election but parties still struggle to attract women

The Labour Party’s efforts to train potential women candidates has only yielded minor results with only 16 women coming forward to contest the 26 March election.

The number of women candidates is five more than the party managed to field five years ago, constituting 23% of its 2022 candidature. In 2017, women candidates constituted 16% of the PL’s candidature.

The Nationalist Party does one better than its rival, fielding 17 women that make up 24% of its candidature. This is the same ratio as the PN had in the 2017 election.

The figures come from the Electoral Commission, which published the final list of candidates who will be contesting the election after nominations closed over the weekend.

With a new mechanism intended to boost the number of women MPs in parliament that will assign a maximum of 12 additional seats to the underrepresented gender, the focus will be on the performance of female candidates.

The overall number of women candidates across all political parties is 42, constituting 24% of all candidates.

ADPD will field a total of 10 candidates, three of which are women or transgender, while ABBA has 14 candidates, four of which are women.

Partit Popolari has eight candidates who are all men, while Volt is fielding two candidates – a woman and a transgender person.

There are also four independent candidates, one who is a woman.

In all, 178 candidates will vie for a parliamentary seat. Some will be contesting on two districts, a possibility allowed at law.

The PL, PN, ADPD, ABBA and Partit Popolari – the latter two being new parties – will field candidates in all districts. Volt will field its two candidates in four districts, while four independent candidates will each contest on two districts.

See the full list of candidates per district in the document below: