Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1330252
15 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 17 JANUARY 2021 NEWS MPs: accelerating history Gender corrective mechanism applied to 2017 general election Original Election Outcome Total Female MPs Ratio Labour Party 37 seats 4 women 10.8% Nationalist Party 30 seats 6 women 20% Parliament 67 seats 10 women 14.9% Note: The final outcome includes the 2 extra seats awarded to the PN to ensure proportionality be- tween votes and seats. The number of women MPs includes those elected in casual elections to fill in seats vacated by MPs elected on two districts. Gender corrective mechanism kicks in Gender threshold of at least 40% is not reached after casual elections. Women are the under-repre- sented sex. 12 extra seats have to be awarded to women candidates, six to each party in parliament. Step 1 Unelected women candidates left standing at last count with votes to their name are declared elected by Electoral Commission – 2 elected PL Deborah Schembri – 12th District – 3,417 PN Paula Mifsud Bonnici – 1st District – 2,749 Step 2 Eliminated women candidates of parties in parliament are ranked according to last count votes or last count votes as a percentage of district quota – 10 elected PL candidates: top-ranked 1. Davina Sammut Hili – 1st District – 431 votes – 11% of quota 2. Nikita Zammit Alamango – 9th District – 396 votes – 10% of quota 3. Rachel Tua – 11th District – 209 votes – 5% of quota 4. Rita Sammut – 4th District – 150 votes – 4% of quota 5. Marion Mizzi – 10th District – 95 votes – 2% of quota Note: Zammit Alamango and Tua contested on two districts so their best-scoring district is being considered PN candidates: top-ranked 1. Graziella Attard Previ – 10th District – 1,883 votes – 48% of quota 2. Graziella Galea – 12th District – 1,257 votes – 32% of quota 3. Alessia Psaila Zammit – 6th District – 804 votes – 21% of quota 4. Roselyn Borg Knight – 10th District – 805 votes – 21% of quota 5. Amanda Abela – 3rd District – 777 votes – 20% of quota Note: Attard Previ, Galea, Borg Knight and Abela contested on two districts and their best-scoring district is being considered Final Election Outcome Total Female MPs Ratio Labour Party 43 seats 10 women 23.3% Nationalist Party 36 seats 12 women 33.3% Parliament 79 seats 22 women 27.8% The gender corrective mechanism would have ensured that the share of women MPs increases to 28%. This still falls short of the target of 40% but the mechanism does not allow the addition of more than 12 seats, otherwise parliament's size would have to grow exponentially. Davina Sammut Hili, Nikita Zammit Alamango, Rachel Tua, Rita Sammut and Marion Mizzi become MPs. Fleur Vella would have been the only Labour female candi- date not to make it to parlia- ment. The PN would have seen Graziella Attard Previ, Grazi- ella Galea, Alessia Psaila Zam- mit, Roselyn Borg Knight and Amanda Abela elected MPs. The PN had a much longer list of women candidates than the PL in the last general election. A look at the numbers shows that Attard Previ had a vote tally of 1,883 before being eliminated – equivalent to 48% of the 10th district quota – putting her top of the PN list, followed by Gra- ziella Galea with 1,257 votes – 32% of the 12th District quota. On the other hand, Labour's top-of-the-list candidate was Sammut Hili with 431 votes be- fore being eliminated – equiv- alent to 11% of the 1st District quota. She was followed by Zammit Alamango, who had 396 votes at the last count or 10% of the 9th District quota. The poorest showing would have been Marion Mizzi for Labour, who would have been elected on the strength of her final tally of 95 votes that is equivalent to 2% of the 10th District quota.