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News •
March 7 2004 |
Matthew Vella
The Party of European Socialists (PES), the socialist parties’ bloc within the European Parliament, has expressed concern at the news that the Malta Labour Party would not be fielding any female candidate for the European Parliament elections in the coming June.
Labour is fielding eight male candidates who managed to get the approval of over 70 per cent of the MLP general conference in two separate elections. The first election returned four candidates, but a petition advanced by Kalkara Mayor Michael Cohen, called for another election to be held in a bid to approve a female and Gozitan candidate to run for MEP.
The PES adviser for women’s rights, Brigitte Bataille spoke to MaltaToday about the outcome of the MLP election as a matter of concern:
“We just think that it is not democratic and a shame. Of course, the PES parliamentary group is in favour of quotas and the Chair of our group, Anna Karamanou wrote a letter to all socialist party leaders from the new member states to remind them they had to put women on the euro electoral list.
“Unfortunately, we can’t intervene because this is the final decision of the party leader, but we simply think that it is politically not correct.”
Socialist MEP Lissy Groener, also the vice-president of both the Socialist International and the women’s Socialist International, told MaltaToday the MLP was sending a bad signal by not fielding any women candidates. She has already brought the matter up in a bureau meeting with MLP observer Dr George Vella.
“It is very serious that no women have been elected to serve as candidates to the European Parliament. Equality is a socialist principle and this is not a developed socially democratic behaviour. This is not acceptable for women and the socialists. This is not a sign of a developed democracy.
“Women form 30 per cent of the European Parliament. Estonia, Malta and Slovenia were the only three accession countries not to send even one female EU observer in the run-up to accession. We made a plea to all party leaders from the accession countries to include women in their list. We have had very positive reactions from Slovenia, who created a new election law to allow for a quota of 30 per cent female participation for the European Parliament elections. Estonia will be sending a female commissioner over to the European Commission.”
Groener said the discussion on the MLP candidates will be continuing in the course of the week as the European Parliament shifts over to Strasbourg, in France. She said the PES will be pushing for a more equal apportionment of candidates.
Last week, woman candidate Sharon Ellul Bonici, who failed to garner the necessary 70 per cent threshold in both the elections held for the MEP candidates, poured scorn over the electoral system, which failed to return either of the two female nominees, the other being Super One TV journalist Claudette Baldacchino.
Ellul Bonici said she had failed to garner the 70 per cent approval by just five votes. In comments given to MaltaToday, she said that unless the MLP remedies the situation, and allows for a female and Gozitan candidate, she would consider running on an independent ticket.
matthew@newsworksltd.com
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