Proposed gender quota system will solve nothing, AD leader says

Rather than the introduction of gender quotas, Malta’s electoral system needs a total overhaul in order to address a number of issues, Alternattiva Demokratika chairman and MEP candidate Carmel Cacopardo said on Tuesday.

Writing on his blog, Cacopardo was reacting to proposals announced by the government that will see the gender corrective mechanism come into play if the under-represented sex in parliament obtains fewer than 40% of seats in the House.The mechanism will see up to 12 MPs from the under-represented sex added to those elected under the normal system. 

However, rather than increase the number of MPs, the AD leader insisted that the country should be moving towards a smaller parliament.

He noted that the consultative document prepared by the government was written in English rather than Maltese.

Moreover, he argued that “the proposal is essentially a constitutional intervention to the facilitate matters for the under-represented gender”.

“The document talks about the under-represented sex rather than gender under-represented and in doing so attempts to circumvent the policy position on the gender representation X, a third genre that neither identifies as male nor female,” he said.  

Under the mechanism being proposed by the government, any individual who identifies as gender X will be considered with the other under-represented sex.

Moreover, he pointed out that what was being proposed only applied to scenarios in which two parties are elected to parliament. “This means that with the election of a third party all that is being proposed wouldn’t be worth the paper it is written on.”

The AD leader argued that there were “other solutions”, which his party had already spoken about. “The electoral system needs to be changed in its entirety.”

Instead of the proposed system, Cacopardo said the country should consider the introduction of balanced party lists that also include gender neutral individuals.

READ MORE: Historic law will put more women MPs inside Malta’s parliament