In 2015, a Pyrrhic victory for hunters sent warning signs to the political establishment

The hunting lobby won the referendum but the season was subsequently stopped three days early after a kestrel was shot in the yard of a private school. 2,000 votes short of defeat, have hunters emerged weaker or stronger? asks JAMES DEBONO

The spring hunting referendum confirmed both the strength and weakness of civil society environmentalist activism.

Collecting 45,000 signatures to make Malta’s first abrogative referendum possible was a remarkable feat on the part of a civil society network relying on the good will of citizens without any support from the political establishment. So was ensuring a 75% turnout (251,000 voters) in a referendum about the hunting of turtle doves and quails in a 19 day period.  

Dispelling fears of the referendum being rendered invalid by a low turnout as many feared, the hunting referendum ended up having a higher turnout than the divorce referendum.  

Still in the end it all boiled down to a lower turnout in areas of the country opposed to hunting and a higher turnout in areas which supported spring hunting. In the end it was a question of mobilisation. The hunting lobby, assisted by the well-oiled electoral machine of the Labour party, won the day.  

When considering the odds against the opponents of spring hunting, the fact that they lost by just 2,000 votes only came as a surprise because of the usually accurate MaltaToday polls, which predicted a ‘no’ victory.  

Yet keeping the momentum in a campaign where hunters re-invented themselves as moderates, thanks to a remarkable makeover, proved difficult for the no campaign.  The hunting lobby personified by Kathleen Grima managed to exorcise the negative image of gun toting hunters holding both parties to ransom through sheer bullying.  Instead Grima managed to turn the bullies into victims who deserved the solidarity of the common folk.

The hunting lobby was able to soften its image and mobilise support in rural Malta by creating an alliance of hobbyists ranging from motorsports enthusiasts to fireworks manufacturers. While this fear was based on a lie, exposed by leading legal minds like Giovanni Bonello, it was an effective tactic as it sowed the seeds of doubt in a constituency which clearly saw the anti-hunting lobby as a threat to their way of life.  Moreover, to mobilise voters in anti-hunting areas, the No campaign was forced to make generalisations about hunters, which ended up shoring turnout in pro-hunting areas.  

 

Rural Malta strikes back?

The picture emerging from the referendum was that of a clear regional divide between the south and western regions traditionally dominated by the Labour party, which voted ‘yes’ (for spring hunting) and the northern districts traditionally dominated by the PN, which voted ‘no’ (against spring hunting). 

The only exception was the inner harbour first district, which was won by the PL in the last general election but which voted ‘no’ in the referendum. 

Gozo, a district equally split between the PN and PL in the last election proved vital to the Yes victory, thanks to its substantial turnout and majority for spring hunting. 

In fact in mainland Malta the majority of voters (50.6% against 49.4%) voted ‘no’.   

An analysis of the result by district clusters shows the yes winning by over 60% in the Labour-held, hunting country of the fifth, sixth and seventh districts – southeast and west, and in Gozo, as correctly predicted in MaltaToday surveys.

These districts also witnessed a high turnout of around 80%, contrary to the rest of Malta, which had a turnout of around 70%. 

On the other hand the No won by over 60% collectively in the cluster including the eighth, ninth, tenth, eleventh and twelfth districts, which includes the urban areas north of the harbour and in the northeast. 

A regional breakdown of MaltaToday’s last survey showed the Yes leading by 61% in Gozo (compared to 62% in the actual referendum) and by 60% in the fifth, sixth and seventh districts as actually happened in the referendum.  

MaltaToday surveys also showed the No leading by 67% in the cluster, which included the eight, ninth, tenth, eleventh and twelfth districts. 

But in an indication that a segment of northern voters stayed at home, in the actual referendum 62% of voters in these districts voted No.  

What MaltaToday surveys clearly got wrong was the vote of the inner and outer harbour districts represented by the first to fourth electoral districts.  

In these districts the MaltaToday survey showed the No and the Yes in a tie with the former enjoying a small two-point lead.  

But this district cluster also had the highest percentage of undecided voters (19%) who indicated that they were not decided. It also included the highest percentage of people intending not to vote (13%). In the actual referendum 55% of voters in these four districts voted ‘no’. This may be an indication that a number of undecided voters ended up voting according to party lines. 

In fact while in the first district, which is the most politically balanced of the four, this was won by the No camp by 54%, the Yes camp carried the second district Labour stronghold by a staggering 62%.

Ultimately the greatest failure of the No campaign was that of creating an alliance with rural voters who may have voted against spring hunting if this was perceived as a measure dictated by sustainability rather than anti-hunting sentiment.  

 

An activist media?

One major factor in the campaign was the active campaigning of the Prime Minister (who declared his intention to vote yes three times during the campaign) and his party, which proved a key factor in the mobilisation of voters in pro-Labour areas.  Surveys showed the majority of Labour voters following their leader in voting for hunting.

Less of a factor was the less vociferous stance of the leader of the opposition, which contrasted with that of the majority of PN voters, who wanted to ban spring hunting. The anti hunting stance of all three major English speaking independent newspapers; MaltaToday, the Times and the Malta Independent, may have been crucial in mobilising support within constituencies opposed to hunting but proved ineffectual in tipping the scales in rural areas, where the partisan media holds sway.  

Still it was this editorial position which irked Prime Minister Joseph Muscat most. As soon as the referendum result was out Muscat suggested that the media (presumably the English-language press that advocated a No vote) had some stocktaking to do. Months later, in the wake of another environmental issue, Muscat raised the same issue when meeting MaltaToday journalists and questioned the fine line that separates journalism from activism in the local context (with particular reference to MalaToday). 

“If I may criticise, at this point in time you’re campaigning as part of civil society, rather than being the media which has a critical point of view,” he told the MaltaToday staff. “At one point in time you will have to decide between the two… where does the campaigning stop, and where does the reporting start?” 

In this sense the positioning of newspapers against spring hunting gave those opposed to spring hunting a solid platform outside the closed space occupied by political parties. It could be the consolidation of this space outside his control, which irked Muscat.  

Yet the PM did take stock of the situation and was able to reassert his authority in the aftermath of a referendum which threatened to undermine his sway over a category of voters irked by his support for hunters.

 

At the mercy of Joseph

But ultimately the near success of the campaign to stop spring hunting may well have dealt a blow to the political blackmail of the hunting lobby. In fact rather than dictating their agenda to politicians, hunters have found themselves at the mercy of Joseph Muscat.

What started as an exercise in direct democracy to remove the arbitrary power of politicians to keep the spring hunting derogation, ended up with Joseph Muscat tweeting his arbitrary decision to close the hunting season after hunters shot down a kestrel in the grounds of a private school.

Joseph Muscat’s astute decision to close the hunting season just days after securing a yes victory for hunters in the spring hunting referendum was another taste of Muscat’s unpredictability. 

The same Joseph Muscat whose troops helped in mobilising voters for the referendum, immediately reached out to no voters by promising to stop the season if faced by ‘flagrant’ illegalities. 

He immediately understood that his part in securing the “yes” victory risked eroding his trust rating among an influential sector of the electorate, simply because it associated him with a lobby whose antics disgust the middle class, whose support he obsessively courts.

There was also the realisation among many hunters that they were just 2,000 votes away from seeing the end of spring hunting and perhaps some were heeding the ominous warning by Muscat that he would stop the season if abuse became flagrant. For the media-savvy PM, ignoring the incident was not an option. For by “flagrant”, Muscat did not have in mind the ecological impact of illegal hunting, but the kind of media attention which disturbs the peace and quiet of the bourgeois constituency, which he is hell-bent not to alienate.

Still this raises the stakes for Muscat to act in the spring hunting season. Will he still stop the season at the first flagrant abuse or will he look the other way to appease a lobby whose votes he will need in 2018?