OSCE: Malta gender quotas should be reviewed by next election

The OSCE international election monitoring board has suggested that Malta’s gender corrective mechanism be revisited before the next elections.

In a report by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) on the 2022 elections, the election expert team (EET) deployed to Malta questioned the impact of the gender-corrective mechanism adopted last year to ensure gender parity in parliament.

Several EET interlocutors remarked that the measures “serve to reinforce the two-party dominance in the legislature while failing to address structural barriers to the representation of women in parliament [and] political life”.

In light of this, the body recommended that the mechanism could be “revisited and revised, in consultation with stakeholders, well in advance of the next elections”.

The gender corrective mechanism kicks in if the under-represented sex makes up less than 40% of all seats in parliament after the election outcome is known. However, the mechanism only kicks in if two parties are elected to parliament.

The OSCE pointed out that from the 177 candidates who contested this year’s election, only 41 candidates – or 23% - were women. Furthermore, 22 of the candidates eventually took parliamentary seats. “Political parties should also be encouraged to strengthen their efforts to support women’s participation through internal party policies and the integration of gender equality considerations in their platforms.”

Last year, independent candidate Arnold Cassola challenged the gender quota law, arguing that the mechanism discriminated against women who are unaffiliated to Malta’s two major political parties.

Cassola accused Prime Minister Robert Abela and Opposition leader Bernard Grech of creating a discriminatory system that allows them to add to their own parliamentarians.

Initially, the First Hall of the Civil Court dismissed the case due to a lack of standing. This decision was later annulled by an appeal to the Constitutional Court.

ADPD – The Green Party launched their own constitutional challenge to the electoral results, arguing that the gender mechanism, as well as the proportionality adjustment measure, discriminate against third parties.

Indeed, under the proportionality adjustment, the Nationalist Party was granted the addition of two MPs from its list of candidates after the electoral results came out, to make well for the discrepancy between the votes obtained by the PN on first count and the number of parliamentary seats won.