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Matthew Vella
The two major parties have told MaltaToday the unanimous agreement on the new electoral boundaries are not set to compromise future talks on electoral reform or the national threshold.
But Alternattiva Demokratika has shown grave doubts about the future of the electoral system and whether this will ever open the door to a third party. Chairperson Harry Vassallo claims discussion was held over whether or not a third party electing a candidate in one district, but not achieving a national threshold, would be allowed representation in parliament.
The revised electoral boundaries have clearly cut into the Green party’s chances of strengthening their base in the liberal, middle-class core of the tenth district, after Swieqi – which returned a Green councillor two years ago – was ‘part-exchanged’ with Gzira from the ninth district.
In fact, the new boundaries mean the Nationalists have effectively lost their fourth street in their tenth district stronghold of Sliema, Pembroke and St Julians, now that Gzira, a Labour locality, has joined the fray.
For Labour it means greater proportionality between votes and seats. For the Green party, it is a loss of atypical Nationalist voters who are always liable to vote green as disillusion sets in.
It is a confirmation, for AD chairperson Harry Vassallo, that the new electoral boundaries have been aimed to leave the electoral system untouched.
But both PN secretary-general Joe Saliba and Labour deputy leader Michael Falzon, who have conducted the talks along with AD, say the revision of the boundaries does not exclude any continued discussion on the national threshold.
“We still have to talk about the national threshold,” Saliba says, who confessed he had no doubt that talks will continue between the parties on electoral reform. “We have no problem to see electoral reform discussions carry on. Everything is still open.”
Likewise Michael Falzon, who says the unanimity on the report is not related to any forgone conclusion on a potential national threshold. “The districts certainly respect the proportionality between votes and seats more, but the discussion on a national threshold, governability and to have Gozo as a one region, should still go on.”
The electoral mathematics of the new boundaries however point to an understanding of sorts between the two parties. With Labour having been granted stricter proportionality, it is unclear as to whether a realistic national threshold enjoys as much enthusiasm now as in the past, when the Nationalist party supported a five per cent threshold.
The last attempts at electoral reform during the 1994 Gonzi commission had seen both the PN and AD supporting a five per cent threshold, although the MLP did not support the proposal. Only recently did Labour leader Alfred Sant say his party supported the five per cent threshold in principle.
But the rumoured 7.5 per cent threshold agreed secretly by the two parties, spun by The Times in the past weeks, would practically make impossible the chances of election today of smaller parties and individual candidates, who would need at least 22,500 votes nationally to elect one MP.
It is a possibility that beyond the rumoured 7.5 per cent threshold, the two parties have opted for a revision of boundaries that strengthens their strategic interests at district level whilst making sure a high threshold keeps the electoral hurdle insurmountable.
For the PN, it would have been the option that opens the way for Alternattiva Demokratika to chop off at its disillusioned electorate.
Without the national threshold, the PN saves itself from ever having to forge a hesitant coalition with AD if the greens’ election to parliament sends the main parties below the 50 per cent line. With Labour granted better proportionality, it means it does not need to worry about a national threshold.
The final report on the revision of electoral boundaries, a biannual exercise conducted by the Electoral Commission, a seven-person body formed by members of the two parties, came back less than two months after the PN first refused the original proposals, claiming they would have yielded a “perverse” result.
The new boundaries show no major changes from the May proposals, so much so that amidst the Nationalist propaganda claiming that the Electoral Commission had proved the party right, the Malta Labour Party stated that the final report was in fact, extremely similar to the original.
In fact, it is the unanimity between the two parties on the new boundaries that may well show that strict proportionality, without a national threshold, is what the parties will come to agree upon.
The PN has clearly bound itself to offer strict proportionality to the Labour party, for years having to contend with a disproportionate allocation of seats vis-à-vis the number of votes it garners. In opposition the MLP is five seats down on the PN – when it won the 1996 election, it was only a constitutional safeguard that gave Labour an extra four seats for a parliamentary majority.
That is why the tenth district loses Swieqi – home of the new middle class and disillusioned Nationalists. In comes Gzira, a Labour locality that will bring the MLP a much needed second seat in the Nationalist stronghold.
“By dismembering the district in this way the chances of any third party electing a candidate by the district quota are reduced and the system can be left unchanged preserving the facade of democracy and avoiding the question of discrimination,” Vassallo says about the tenth district, the constituency he hails from and where AD has a positive track record on local councils.
For the PN, an opportunity for a potential fourth seat in the twelfth district, the rural heartland of the Nationalists. With Ghajnsielem rudely chopped off Gozo, after the sister island’s voters increased by more than five per cent from the constitutional electoral quota, its addition to Mellieha, Naxxar, and San Pawl il-Bahar may well strengthen the PN further in the north.
Elsewhere in Labour’s second to sixth districts, where strength is concentrated in the working-class south, no major changes have occurred that might significantly alter its voting base, except for the addition of Siggiewi – a major PN locality – to Qormi and Luqa in the sixth.
Vassallo appears to have lost faith in the electoral reform talks. “It is expected that the tripartite talks will now proceed to the conclusion which the other two parties have already reached and the country will be invited to accept as a generous concession some national electoral threshold much higher than those found anywhere in Europe. At that point the charade will have come to its conclusion.”
matthew@newsworksltd.com
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