Speaker Anglu Farrugia believes Malta has too many MPs
Speaker of the House Anglu Farrugia believes that Malta has too many Members of Parliament, and he advocated for a reform to the country's electoral model to cut clientelism and make for a more focused and efficient parliament.Farrugia was speaking t
Speaker of the House Anglu Farrugia believes that Malta has too many Members of Parliament, and he advocated for a reform to the country's electoral model to cut clientelism and make for a more focused and efficient parliament.
Farrugia was speaking to The Malta Independent in a wide-ranging interview, the first part of which was published in yesterday's edition of The Malta Independent on Sunday.
Malta currently has 79 MPs in its Parliament - 65 elected (5 from each of the country's 13 electoral districts), two more elected as a result of a proportionality mechanism, and the remaining 12 added to the ranks due to a gender corrective mechanism.
The gender corrective mechanism was used for the first time in the last general election in March 2022, and is used when one or another gender is under-represented in Parliament, allowing for a maximum of 12 candidates of a particular gender to be elected as MPs.
The measure was introduced as an answer to Malta's very low levels of female representation in Parliament, and it is only used if a particular gender has a presence of less than 40% in Parliament and if just two political parties are elected.
Its implementation created the most gender-balanced parliament in Maltese history, but it has also caused the largest Parliament in the country's history - meaning that Malta now has the largest number of parliamentarians per capita of any EU member state.
"I don't agree with it personally," Farrugia told this newspaper when the subject was brought up during the interview. "I'm one of those who believes that to cut clientelism and make politics more serious on a national level rather than a district level that Malta and Gozo shouldn't be more than four or five electoral districts," he explained.
"You will cut out clientelism. I used to be elected from Mosta, so you automatically remain somewhat tied to that district. Even if you resist - and I used to resist a lot - you still have people who will say that they will not vote for you if you don't give them something," he continued.
Right now, Malta has an MP for every 6,532 voters and far more MPs in number than other similarly sized European countries like Luxembourg (which has 60 MPs, one for every 10,579 voters) and Cyprus (which has 56 MPs, one for every 16,000 voters).
"I think 45 to 50 MPs is enough... Cyprus is bigger than us and has less MPs. There is something that doesn't hold up," Farrugia said.
He noted that both major political forces - the Labour-led government and the Nationalist-led Opposition - were happy with the reform, but he wasn't.
"A model that cuts clientelism to create a more focused parliament, together with the right to be full-time will create a parliament which is more functional like in other small countries with this system," he said.
The first part of this interview was published in yesterday's The Malta Independent on Sunday.
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