Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1098850
OPINION 23 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 31 MARCH 2019 Quotas by any other name… Michael Falzon micfal45@gmail.com THE consultation document about the proposed steps to be taken to ensure gender balance in Parliament makes interesting reading. The first thing that one notices is that it goes to great lengths and ver- bal gymnastics to avoid the use of the word 'quota'. For a very good reason of course: quotas are opposed by many who consider their imposition as a form of discrimination – even if only a case of temporary positive discrimination. Indeed, I know women who are opposed to quota systems to boost female participation in politics or wherever as a matter of principle – even as a kind of insult from the inference that to attain some position in life a woman needs some help from a quota sys- tem, rather than resting on her own merits. The proposed amendments do not propose to establish quotas for women MPs but make reference to "the under- represented sex" in a way that they even entertain the possibility that one of these decades, men will become the under-represented sex in Par- liament. Hence the proposals are not discriminatory! The PN has still to decide whether they will give a nod or press on the brakes. Since the proposals include Con- stitutional amendments that need a two-thirds majority to be approved the PN's reac- tion that it requires some time to decide on the proposals is understandable. Even so, I find the comments made by the PN Executive President, Mark Anthony Sammut, to be quite enlightening. He worked out the statistical chance of a candidate being elected and found that, based on their ac- tual numbers, male and female candidates enjoy a roughly equal probability of being elected. Therefore, his argu- ment goes, the problem was not voter prejudice but lack of female candidates. The report indirectly ac- knowledges this problem by proposing that political parties should be subsidised by funds depending on the number of candidates that were fielded in the previous election that belonged to the under-repre- sented sex. The more women candidates, the more funds! Here again the inevitable ques- tion pops up: would political parties push to field more female candidates in order to get this subsidy, rather than because they are worthy can- didates? The proposals have two limiting factors: the proposed mechanism to balance the genders in Parliament is ap- plied only if one of the two sexes has less than 40% of the elected MPs and, moreover, the proposed amendments have an unconditional sunset clause such that the proposed mechanism would expire after 20 years, unless other legisla- tive steps are taken in the meantime. What bugs me most is that, in the end, the propos- als are yet another tweak to our electoral system. Since 1987 our electoral system has undergone a lot of tweaks that undermine the mathematical principles on which the Single Transferable Vote (STV) system is based – to the extent that many like me wonder whether our system needs a complete radical change, espe- cially considering the futility of candidates of the same party battling it out against each other. Proposing to tweak our current system again implies that the radical change needed will never be realised and that everybody is happy with the culture of favours and crony- ism that are an intrinsic part of our electoral system. Essentially, the proposal seeks to leave things exactly as they currently are but then adds seats to the ones already duly elected, to be filled by female candidates. This means that no one could complain that he was precluded from a seat in Parliament that he would have got if the current system was applied. So far so good! Avoiding such com- plaints led to increasing the number of seats – by not more than 12 – to be filled by female candidates. The Gender Corrective Mechanism will then butt in. First by considering the sixth unelected and uneliminated candidate in all districts. The document does not use the word 'uneliminated' but resorts to a shoddy transla- tion of the Maltese idiomatic 'imdendel' to call them 'hang- ing' candidates. Rest assured, however that this is no refer- ence to washing day or to the gallows... If any of the 'hanging' candidates are of the under- represented sex they will be declared elected and will retain one's parcel of votes; the remaining seats, necessary to approach the 40% threshold of the MPs forming the House, will be filled through a casual election open only to unelect- ed General Election candidates of the under-represented sex. These casual elections will be held utilising: i. the votes of hanging candidates from the under-represented sex that were not elected; ii. the votes of hanging candidates from the over-represented sex that were not elected; and iii. the wasted votes of those candi- dates elected through a casual election. The idea is that – addition- ally – the Gender Corrective Mechanism minimises the number of so-called 'wasted' votes because currently parcels of votes of candidates elected by casual elections remain unutilised if they give up their seat, as the Member replacing him/her is co-opted by Parlia- ment. The document forgets that these 'wasted' votes are already being represented by the added seats so that the composition of the House reflects the percentage of votes cast for each of two parties. In effect, these 'wasted' votes will now be doubly represented. The Gender-Corrective mechanism leads to the elec- tion of such a number of can- didates from the 'under-rep- resented' sex so as to respect the difference in seats between the two parties in Parliament as per current situation. When this is not possible, co-option is resorted to as a final option. Again, the system assumes a two-party House of Repre- setntatives and applying it, if there is more than one party represented in Parliament, creates many problems. No wonder Alternattiva Demokra- tika and Partit Demokra- tiku immediately gave it the thumbs down. All in all, it is quite a cred- ible attempt at introducing a mechanism that attempts to correct under-representation of women in the House of Representatives. That doesn't mean I am fully convinced, however. I still think that we should scrap our electoral system – as I have insisted so many times. We should make a radical change to the system rather than keep on tweaking it every now and then for some reason or other. Another thing that crops up: if we are going to study what are the Constitutional amend- ments that Malta needs, why don't we make one radical change rather than changing the Constitution piecemeal? Perhaps, Joseph Muscat can only take this piecemeal ap- proach in the time left before his much vaunted early retire- ment. This means that his 'new republic' dream will never become reality! If we are going to study what are the Constitutional amendments that Malta needs, why don't we make one radical change rather than changing the Constitution piecemeal? The proposed mechanism to balance the genders in Parliament is applied only if one of the two sexes has less than 40% of the elected MPs