With the casual elections now complete and in the books, the outcome of the gender corrective mechanism can now be worked out.
Given that a total of 10 women have been elected to Parliament, either during the initial election process or during the casual election process which was completed on Tuesday, another 12 women have now been added to Parliament to increase the percentage of female representation in the House.
These will be evenly split between the PN and the PL, with each electing six female candidates each.
The unelected female candidates of the two parties are ranked according to their respective party, and according to the percentage of the quota of votes required for them to be elected in their district. That percentage is worked out on the number of votes each candidate had to their name at the last count when they were knocked out of the running.
With this in mind, the 12 candidates who will be elected can now be identified.
For the PL, Alicia Bugeja Said, Cressida Galea, Abigail Camilleri, Amanda Spiteri Grech, Naomi Cachia, and Davina Sammut Hili are the six who will be elected. All six of them are new faces for Parliament, and all of them with the exception of Sammut Hili contested a general election for the first time in 2022.
For the PN meanwhile, Janice Chetcuti, Paula Mifsud Bonnici, Julie Zahra, Bernice Bonello, Claudette Buttigieg, and Eve Borg Bonello are the six who will be elected. Four of them are new faces in Parliament, while Mifsud Bonnici is a returning face, and Buttigieg is a re-elected incumbent MP.
Most notably, Borg Bonello will become the youngest person to ever become an MP, having been elected at the age of just 18.
This means that there will be 22 women in a Parliament made up of 79 seats, equating to a ratio of 28% - the highest Malta’s female representation in Parliament has ever been, but still far below the 40% threshold that the law aims for to not apply the quota.
The quota has been the subject of criticism, with some arguing that its use gives an unnecessary free pass to women over other men who may have achieved more votes during the electoral process. Its advocates however state that the law will allow more women to break the political glass ceiling, thereby encouraging others to stand for election.
It has also been criticised for its total exclusion of third parties from the equation. The mechanism only comes into force when two political parties are elected, and then does not take into consideration female candidates who contested with other political parties when determining the ranking of who should be elected.
Had third party candidates been taken into consideration, ADPD’s Sandra Gauci and Melissa Bagley both actually would have ranked higher than one of the PL’s candidates who was elected.
Indeed, Davina Sammut Hili only managed to achieve 12.86% of her district quota – the equivalent of just 465 votes when she was knocked out on the 14th count on the first district. Bagley on her part achieved 12.98% of her district quota, while Gauci achieved 14.12% of the quota on her own district.
There was further controversy more recently, after one of the PN’s candidates – Janice Chetcuti – announced that she would not be contesting Tuesday’s casual elections because she was sure of election through the gender corrective mechanism.
Indeed, Chetcuti topped the PN’s gender ranking having achieved 74.43% of her district quota before being knocked out of the running.
She would have been one of the favourites to win the seat vacated by Stephen Spiteri on the third district, but opted not to contest so that the party can have three representatives on the district she represents.
Veteran Carmelo Mifsud Bonnici was subsequently elected instead.
Had Chetcuti contested the casual election and won her seat through that means, one of the PN’s new candidates Emma Portelli Bonnici, who only just missed out on being elected through a casual election as well, would have made it to Parliament through the gender corrective mechanism instead.