Opposition MP appeals for electoral system that is fairer on candidates

Hermann Schiavone, newly elected Opposition MP from the fifth district has appealed for the country to move towards an electoral system that is fairer on candidates and which ensures that competition for a seat in parliament is based on policy points, rather than giveaways.

Speaking during parliamentary adjournment following this morning’s session, Schiavone explained that the fact that policy was determined on a party-level, candidates vying for election on the same district, needed to resort to other ways of “distinguishing” themselves from the rest.

One example, he said, was candidates giving away cans of corned-beef and bottles of wine with their face printed on the packaging.

“It is not my intention to ridicule anyone, especially since I remember when we in the Nationalist Party were allowed to give out tokens and giveaways,” said Schiavone, who added that he remembered giving away pens to constituents himself in past elections.

He insisted that this what not what Maltese politics should be based on and called for there to be an effort to update the current system.

Regarding casual elections – elections held on a district to fill a seat vacated by candidate elected on the same district – Schiavone said that it was unfair for candidates who would have been just short of reaching the quota in the casual election to not have that considered in a casual election.

Moreover, he said it did not even make sense for candidates to be able to contest two districts.

“Many of the anomalies we are experiencing in our system, we are experiencing in casual elections, so I would hope that we could find time to discuss this,” he said.

Another change Schavione said he would like to see implemented was for districts to be kept unchanged for a period of up to ten years.

He said limits on MPs’ time in politics should be also be considered, as well as the introduction of measures to counteract what is commonly referred to as the donkey vote, where voters intending to vote for all the candidates of a particular party fill in their ballot sheet from top to bottom, resulting in a situation that favours those closer to the top of the list.

There were mechanisms, explained Schiavone, that could easily be implemented into the current system that would mitigate the problem, such as a rotation of names on the ballot sheet, or printing photographs next to candidates’ name to facilitate recognition.

Schiavone went on to say that if it were up to him, a completely new system would be adopted, one similar to that used by Nordic countries which facilitated participation of females as well as that of technocrats in government.