In the Sunday 27 January 2008 edition of The Malta Independent on Sunday the Queen of Mean of Malta wrote a pathetic article article pleading with former PN voters not to vote waste their vote by voting for one of the smaller parties since this would only help the MLP.
Apart from the peculiarities of the Maltese voting system, this plea is a sad reflection of Maltese politics. Voters are asked, directed even bullied into voting to keep a party out of Government rather than to vote someone into Government. Isn't it sad that after twenty years of successive Nationalist administration the PN has to depend on a negative message. Can't the PN fight an election of a positive note.
The second point is the state of Malta's democracy. Why do we still have a system where the two antagonists agree on disenfranchising a substantial portion of the population to preserve the duopoly? The system makes sure that no-one can break the rigid mould.
The elections to the European Parliament are a case in point. The PN and AD shared the same pro-EU platform for the 2003 EU referendum. Yet the PN preferred the third MEP to go to the MLP rather than AD. The third seat could have easily gone to AD had the PN directed its supporters to continue their ballot preferences to the AD candidate. An AD MEP could have helped to break the duopoly.
According to the PN and MLP voters can any person to represent them so long as they are from the PN and MLP. So much for their democratic credentials. This elections should be used by the electorate to vote to whoever they want without fear. Maybe finally the electoral system will one day be fixed.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
The PN and AD shared the same pro-EU platform for the 2003 EU referendum. Yet the PN preferred the third MEP to go to the MLP rather than AD. The third seat could have easily gone to AD had the PN directed its supporters to continue their ballot preferences to the AD candidate. An AD MEP could have helped to break the duopoly.
Some points mentioned here are inaccurate. What the Nationalist Party did not do was to instruct its voters to vote only for Nationalist candidates.
But had they asked voters to vote for their candidates and then give a preference to Prof Cassola, I would have happily gone against that directive. I, and many others, will never, ever forgive the Greens for having jeopardised Malta's EU bid in 2003 by their behaviour.
To recap: if for the fifth and last MEP seat the contest is between the Green Party and Donald Duck, Donald is my man.
Well Fausto, you do indeed confirm that the PN did not direct its voters to continue giving preferences to the AD candidate.
Therefore you do agree that PN preferred a third labour MEP to a pro-EU AD candidate.
None of the parties direct their voters to continue giving their preferences even to candidates of other parties. Very often it does not matter but sometimes it could make a huge difference.
Post a Comment