Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1330252
8 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 17 JANUARY 2021 INTERVIEW Raphael Vassallo rvassallo@mediatoday.com.mt 'We are ready for a June election' Let me start by quoting an edito- rial headline in this newspaper: 'Gender quotas should be part of a holistic electoral reform'. Do you agree with that statement? Isn't the gender-balance mech- anism, currently under debate, just another case of tinkering with the electoral system, to guarantee a pre-determined re- sult? Yes, I do agree; and not just with regard to gender balance. As it happens, my doctoral thesis was precisely about Malta's electoral system. The reality is that we have been 'patching it up' for many years. The Single Transferable Vote, which has now been in place for exactly 100 years, was originally designed to fragment the party system; in fact, the concept of 'po- litical parties' was introduced only after the perverse result of 1981. That was when we began to 'patch up' the system: first to en- sure majority rule; then to address the issue of relative majorities… then to ensure proportionality by allocating additional seats… and now, we are introducing gender quotas, along the same lines, with- out taking into consideration the broader picture. So Bernard Grech's appeal – and also mine, in my public state- ments – is: let's get together and discuss this further. Apart from the fact that this law, in its present state, is flawed in several impor- tant aspects: on its own, it will not solve the problem of low female participation in the political pro- cess. This is why the Nationalist Party is proposing a more holistic reform… You have criticised the proposed law for being too grounded in a bipartisan system; but another problem is that it places the onus of gender balance on the Consti- tution… rather than on the politi- cal parties themselves. Wouldn't it make more sense to simply compel political parties to field more female candidates? The problem is not that the par- ties themselves are unwilling. It's that they are unable. In my thesis, I interviewed both Dr Alfred Sant and Dr Eddie Fenech Adami, and I specifical- ly asked them about the issue of female candidates. The reality is that both parties can go down on their knees, and beg women to contest with tears in their eyes… but it's useless. They don't find enough women who are willing to go into politics. It's as simple as that… And yet, according to my re- search, when women do take the plunge… they fare as well as men: actually, around 2% better. So the real problem is not, as many peo- ple assume, the electorate. It is at candidacy stage… This is also visible at the Euro- pean Parliament, where Malta's gender balance has always been around 50-50. Also, parties seem to have no problems attracting female candidates to contest Eu- ropean elections. Could this sim- ply be because the remuneration package (and other perks) are so much more attractive? There's another reason: in Eu- ropean elections, the ballot list is much shorter. In an election where only six MEPs are elected, it makes no sense to field hundreds of candidates, as we do in general elections. You end up fielding on- ly around 12 candidates… which makes it a lot easier to find wom- en – or just good candidates, gen- erally - who are interested. Another reason is that the Eu- ropean Parliament itself is a very different ballgame. Elected MEPs have their own staff, their own re- sources… and the work is very dif- ferent. It is much less confronta- tional: because European politics is all about consensus, and tem- porary coalitions. The same, ob- viously, cannot be said for Malta. But yes, part of it is also about the conditions. Not just money: but the timing of sittings; the lack From gender balance in Parliament, to the state of the PN four months into Grech's leadership, Nationalist MP HERMANN SCHIAVONE is confident that the Opposition is finding its feet