The election campaign has kicked off. Billboards have been erected and the usual press conferences and activities are under way. Bread and butter issues will be brought to the forefront during the five weeks’ campaign. We will be bombarded with leaflets, news items and anything that goes with campaigning.

In the meantime, in some hidden office in Castille, someone or some civil servants are deciphering the proposals being received as part of the public consultation launched a few weeks ago by the Parliamentary Secretary Julia Farrugia Portelli with regard to gender equality in the House of Representatives.

I read through the proposals with great interest as the topic is very much down my street. The Nationalist Party has also set up a commission to discuss the matter and put forward proposals. What you are about to read are my personal thoughts and in no way reflect anybody else’s or any other institution’s position.

It is being proposed that a maximum of 12 MPs from the underrepresented gender be increased to the current number of MPs in the House. The intention is to have a better balanced Parliament with a figure close to 40 per cent of any gender being represented. Fine. I agree in principle that the country would benefit from a more balanced House.

As things stand, women are very much underrepresented and according to many, the situation will not improve unless we take affirmative action. I also agree with this statement.

The problem I have with the proposal is that the manner in which the document suggests this to be addressed, bypasses completely the democratic process of elections. I have no space to explain this in detail. Let’s just say that the single transferable vote system does not allow for promoting gender balance without somehow bypassing the democratic process.

In other words, somehow in some districts, candidates with more votes will be bypassed to elect others of the underrepresented gender with less votes. No matter how the system is tweaked this will surely happen.

What are the alternatives?

There are electoral systems, such as the closed-list systems, widely used in Western democracies and single-member systems, such as the first-past-the-post system used in Britain, which facilitates the election of a gender- balanced House of Representatives.

I like to see a complete overhaul of our electoral system, I cannot imagine it happening any time soon

In the 1997 UK general election, Tony Blair’s Labour Party did not just win with a landslide but also managed to elect 101 female candidates. These became popularly known as Blair’s babes, referring to Blair’s initiative to nominate female candidates in winnable constituencies.

The gender balanced parliaments in Scandinavia are also a result of what is known a zipped closed list system where candidates of different sex are featured in alternate positions on the party list. Voters in these countries allocate a preference to a list of candidates rather than individuals.

Mixed-member systems such as the one used in Germany where MPs are elected either from single-member constituencies or from a list also facilitate a gender balanced parliament.

As much as I like to see a complete overhaul of our electoral system, I cannot imagine it happening any time soon as parties do not seem to have the will to do so.

This therefore means that any initiative to improve better gender balance will require bypassing of the democratic process. What we have to attempt to do therefore, is to minimise as much as possible the prevalence of such.

There are various ways of doing so.

We can introduce a mixed-member system. Keeping the existing 13 electoral districts and elect three MPs from each (39 MPs). At the same time parties present a national zipped closed list and the remaining 26 MPs will be elected accordingly. This will ensure the election of 12-14 of each gender.

 This system is fairer to the one presented by the government but may pose a problem to parties to decide who is where on the list.

The second proposal is to have six electoral districts in Malta and one in Gozo. Parties will be bound to nominate a balanced list of candidates. Furthermore, candidates will only be allowed to contest one district, which in this instance would be equivalent to two districts. Ten MPs will be elected (five in Gozo) from each district.

 So what is there to gain with this system? Well, first of all academic research shows that the more women contest, the more are elected. There is almost a parallel relationship between women candidacies and women elected. A balanced slate will improve women’s chances of election.

If not enough MPs from a particular gender are elected, then the system will elect the best placed underrepresented gender candidate from each party. This will ensure proportionality remains intact.

Furthermore, this amendment will improve proportionality nationwide as the percentage of wasted votes will be halved. Not to mention also the elimination of anomalies in casual elections.

These are a few proposals which can form the basis for further discussions between parties. The purpose of these proposals is not to eliminate completely the bypassing of the democratic process in the event of quota introduction in our present electoral system.

The idea is only to mitigate as much as possible for such eventuality.   

Herman Schiavone is a Nationalist Party MP.

This is a Times of Malta print opinion piece