PN files fresh court application against Electoral Commission

The PN and two candidates Claudette Buttigieg and Frederick Azzopardi have filed a Constitutional court application against the Electoral Commission, over the 9 March election result which the PN insists "did not reflect the will of the people," and distorted proportionality in Parliament.

In its application the PN, Buttigieg and Azzopardi  are asking the Constitutional court to declare the Electoral Commission's actions in breach of the right to free elections which uphold the will of the people and consequently address the injustice suffered by the party and the two candidates by correcting the number of MPs elected to reflect proportionality.

The application follows the Constitutional court's rejection of the PN's application to have a recount on the eighth and thirteenth electoral districts, arguing that Buttigieg  and Azzopardi it  was not in the judicial interest because the two candidates would have still won a Parliamentary seat through the Constitutional mechanism guaranteeing proportionality.

However the PN and the two candidates filed a new application, because they insisted that the Electoral Commission had admitted that errors were committed in the counting process and as a consequence the two candidates were not elected thanks to the votes they obtained.

The PN also pointed out that the commission's errors led to the election of two Labour MPs instead of Buttigieg and Azzopardi and Labour enjoyed a nine-seat majority in Parliament, instead of a seven-seat majority.

In its application the PN said that the errors violated the right to free elections which reflect the will of the people.

In its previous application, rejected by the Constitutional court last week, the PN said that during the counting process on the Gozo district, 10 votes which belonged to PN candidate Paul Buttigieg were found to be missing on the eighth count, and as a consequence of the mistake, allegedly committed by the Electoral Commission, the PN lost the district to Labour by nine votes.

Because the mistake was committed during counts which had already been closed, counting can only start once again by order of the Constitutional Court.

The announcement came in the wake of a historic win for Labour, as it managed to scoop up a Gozitan seat majority instead of the usual two it managed to secure in the traditionally blue locality.

The issues raised by the PN concerned candidates Claudette Pace from the eighth district (after 50 votes went missing) and Frederick Azzopardi from the 13th district. The two were present for the proceedings, and their cases were dealt with separately.

But the case was further complicated when the Court was informed by the Electoral Commission that should the Court uphold the request for a recount and Pace and Azzopardi be elected on their own merit, there existed the possibility that the formula would change, and rather than have the PN obtain four more electoral seats.

Not 'co-opting' four electoral seats, would mean that the Commission  will have to increase the PN's proportionality and meanwhile reduce the PL's parliamentary majority to seven rather than nine seats.