For the fourth time Parliament has blocked the two-thirds Gender Bill. On Wednesday there were only 174 members in the National Assembly, 59 short of a quorum.
This triumph for ‘entrenched male chauvinism’ was actually quite sensible.
Presently there are 76 women MPs and another 39 female MPs would need to be nominated to reach the one-third level.
But these MPs would not be democratically elected — they would be picked proportionally by parties in Parliament. And they would increase the already astronomical costs of our MPs by another 10 per cent.
There is a simpler and more democratic solution. Let us pass legislation requiring political parties to select at least one-third women as their candidates for elective office. To win, parties would have to identify the most dynamic women to be their candidates.
Soon women would reach the one-third mark in Parliament and even surpass it, without any extra cost or any democratic deficit.
So let’s drop the proposal for more nominated female MPs in the Gender Bill in favour of parties being required to select at least one third women for their candidates.
Quote of the day: "If we see light at the end of the tunnel, it's the light of the oncoming train."
Robert Lowell
The American poet was born on March 1, 1917
