Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/795987
WWW.MALTATODAY.COM.MT WEDNESDAY EDITION €1.00 Newspaper post PAGE 5 PAGE 9 • Editorial WEDNESDAY • 8 MARCH 2017 • ISSUE 512 • PUBLISHED EVERY WEDNESDAY AND SUNDAY De Marco denies Busuttil asked him to resign or give up Seabank brief PAGE 4 TIM DIACONO PAUL COCKS PN deputy leader Mario de Marco has contradicted Simon Busuttil's claim that he had been given a choice to resign his post or withdraw his brief as legal ad- visor to hotelier Silvio Debono for his contentious St George's Bay project. Busuttil told the press on Mon- day that he had presented his deputy with an ultimatum last weekend – to choose between his political position and his pri- vate job as lawyer to Debono's DB Group. However, in response to ques- tions by MaltaToday, de Marco contradicted his leader's version of events. "I can confirm that there was no such meeting or such a re- quest," he said. "It was in fact I who had informed Simon [sic] earlier that my firm was willing to renounce its brief if this was creating a conflict problem to him or the party." Debono, owner of the Seabank and San Antonio hotels and the Hard Rock franchise, will be developing a €300 million Hard Rock Hotel on the site of the In- stitute of Tourism Studies. Until last Saturday, his legal advisor for the project was Guido de Marco & Associates – of which Mario de Marco is a partner. Mario de Marco had flagged potential conflict of interest to Simon Busuttil two years ago, absented himself from PN meetings on ITS project Muscat wants Parliament gender quotas, but without cutting male MPs TIM DIACONO PRIME Minister Joseph Muscat has proposed a system of gen- der quotas that would boost the presence of women MPs, without reducing the number of current male MPs. Muscat made his proposal dur- ing a Facebook live Q&A session held on the eve of International Women's Day, in response to a question by Network of Young Women Leaders – a new NGO. "While we should be proud that the majority of our MEPs are women, we are lagging way behind in gender equality when it comes to our national Parliament," he admitted. Indeed, only nine out of the 71 current MPs are women. Muscat said that he is personally torn over whether to introduce gender quotas or not, and that his friends have polarising opinions on the matter. However, he re- cently came to the conclusion that there was no other alternative to "kick-start the higher participa- tion of women in political life". "In the coming months, I will announce a proposal to raise the number of female MPs without re- ducing the number of male ones," he said – a proposal that would suggest an even more bloated Par- liament. "Those who get elected will gain a seat in Parliament, but over and above that, there will be a higher female participation with the aim of striking some sort of balance. "I hope that the number of wom- en MPs in the coming years starts to resemble other European Par- liaments, and I hope that eventu- ally we will have no further need for quotas." He recounted how the Labour Party had in the past introduced gender quotas for its executive committee and that the early criti- cism of the scheme died down af- ter a few years. "There was a lot of controversy about women getting elected over men who got more votes, but in the end we just grew so used to it that there was no longer any need for quotas," he said. "Indeed, now we no longer have quotas for wom- en but rather gender quotas as we don't want men to end up in a mi- nority either." Joseph Muscat addressed a live Q&A session on Facebook