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MaltaToday 13 April 2022 MIDWEEK

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2 NEWS maltatoday | WEDNESDAY • 13 APRIL 2022 2 NEWS ELECTIONS 2022 First ever use of gender mechanism sees 12 women elected to parliament KURT SANSONE THE election process was com- pleted on Tuesday with the final stage being the election of 12 women MPs through the new gender corrective mechanism. The six women MPs elected for the Labour Party are Alicia Bugeja Said, Cressida Galea, Abigail Camilleri, Amanda Spiteri Grech, Naomi Cachia and Davina Sammut Hili. All six have never been in par- liament and for five of them, this was also their first general election. The six women MPs elected for the Nationalist Party are Janice Chetcuti, Paula Mifsud Bonnici, Julie Zahra, Bernice Bonello, Claudette Buttigieg and Eve Borg Bonello. The mechanism enabled for- mer MPs Mifsud Bonnici and Buttigieg to make it to parlia- ment. The other four will be MPs for the first time. At 18 years of age, Borg Bonello is also the youngest ever MP. A curiosity is the fact that the PN parliamentary group now includes two for- mer Eurovision singers – Julie Zahra and Claudette Buttigieg. After all casual elections were completed, the Electoral Com- mission used the mechanism to draw up a rank order of une- lected female candidates based on the ratio between their last count vote and the district quota. The PN's Janice Chetcuti was elected first because she was left standing at the last count without being eliminated. Chetcuti had decided not to contest the casual election on the 3rd District to allow an- other candidate to make it to parliament from the constitu- ency, given that she had been assured a seat through the mechanism. The mechanism is applied if the least represented gender falls below 40% but the addi- tional seats are capped at 12 – six for either side. All 12 seats had to be used. 28% of MPs are now women The PL elected three women MPs in the election – Miriam Dalli, Julia Farrugia Portel- li and Alison Zerafa Civelli – and another four women in the casual elections – Rosianne Cutajar, Romilda Zarb Baldac- chino, Rebecca Buttigieg and Katya De Giovanni. The PL parliamentary group will have 13 women. The PN elected one woman MP in the election – Graziel- la Galea – and two women in the casual elections held today – Rebekah Cilia and Graziella Attard Previ. The PN parliamentary group will have nine women within its ranks. From a parliament of 79 MPs, 22 are women. This means that 28% of MPs are women, the highest ever ratio. Gender mechanism results PL MPs Alicia Bugeja Said Cressida Galea Abigail Camilleri Amanda Spiteri Grech Naomi Cachia Davina Sammut Hili PN MPs Janice Chetcuti Paula Mifsud Bonnici Julie Zahra Bernice Bonello Claudette Buttigieg Eve Borg Bonello PN candidate Eve Borg Bonello becomes youngest MP in Malta's history KARL AZZOPARDI NATIONALIST candidate Eve Borg Bonello has become the youngest MP to get elected into the House. On Tuesday, the PN's casual elections saw seven MPs get elected on the Opposition side of the House, with five new faces making it to the benches. At just 18 years old, Borg Bonello was confirmed can- didate just 11 days before the General Election was called, and contested the ninth and tenth districts. She rose to prominence having addressed a civil society protest in the wake of revelations sur- rounding the Daphne Caruana Galizia murder. Failing to get elected through the casual elections, Borg Bonel- lo made it to the House through the gender quota mechanism. Speaking to MaltaToday short- ly after she was elected, an emo- tional Borg Bonello said that while she does not know what the future holds for her, she will do her utmost to repay the faith shown in her. "An MP is a representative of the people, and that is why from tomorrow I will start with my house visits again to ensure I carry out my duty properly," she said. Asked what issues she hopes to pursue as an MP, Borg Bonello said she was always passionate about human rights, good gov- ernance and the environment. "I will continue working until the PN makes it to government," she said. LUKE VELLA INDEPENDENT candidate Ar- nold Cassola called the gender corrective mechanism undemo- cratic and said it was only beneft- ting PL and PN at the expense of third parties. In a statement on Tuesday, soon after the gender mechanism elect- ed 12 new women in Parliament, Cassola said, "this is the biggest travesty of democracy [...] Is the will of the electors being respect- ed? Is this right? Is this democra- cy?" Cassola argued that ADPD can- didate Sandra Gauci got more votes than PL candidate Davina Sammut Hili, however the mecha- nism benefitted Sammut Hili and elected her to Parliament. He also criticised the move by PN's Janice Chetcuti to drop out of the casual election race on the 3rd District, relying on the mech- anism to be elected, making way for a male colleague. Carm Mifsud Bonnici was elected on Tuesday, filling up the seat vacated by Ste- phen Spiteri on the district. "Janice Chetcuti, makes a whole mockery of the supposed correc- tive mechanism and plays about with the system in order to ensure that her PN male colleague gets elected... at the expense of a wom- an," Cassola said. He said the mechanisms intro- duced only benefitted PL and PN at the expense of third party can- didates. "The crux of the issue is that it is not true that the law is giving women representation in parlia- ment according to the will of the voters. This is the state of democ- racy in Malta. Shameful," Cassola concluded. Cassola calls gender corrective mechanism 'the biggest travesty of democracy' Sandra Gauci

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