Estranged voters: Proposal to split Marsaskala, Birkirkara and Pieta for next election

Marsaskala, Birkirkara and Pieta will be split up between different electoral districts if changes to the boundaries proposed by the Electoral Commission are accepted.

The three localities will join Naxxar, which will see more residents being hived off from the core community after the locality lost more streets to the 10th District in the last boundary changes before the 2022 general election.

Until the last general election, the Birkirkara electorate, which now numbers 17,621, voted in the 8th District. The proposed changes would see 4,113 voters hived off from the rest of the locality and shifted to the 1st District. The estranged voters include residents in the Fleur de Lys hamlet and 3,000 other voters in Birkirkara proper.

Similarly, 733 voters from Marsaskala will be hived off from their locality and shifted to the 2nd District. Marsaskala currently has 10,436 voters, who until the last election voted together in the 3rd District.

The same fate awaits voters in Pieta. The changes will see 1,673 voters from Pieta removed from the 1st District and shifted to the 9th District. The rest of Pieta’s voters in the Gwardamanġa hamlet, numbering 1,034, will remain in the 1st District.

Naxxar will continue to see its community butchered in the proposed plans. Naxxar voters hived off in 2021, numbering 3,056 voters, will still vote in the 10th District but they will be joined by an additional 1,875 voters from more streets in the locality. The Baħar iċ-Ċagħaq hamlet, part of Naxxar, will also remain in the 10th District. The remaining core voters in Naxxar, now reduced to 6,000, will be expected to vote in the 8th District instead of the 12th District.

These plans, seen by MaltaToday, were put forward by the electoral commissioners nominated by the Labour Party. The proposal also reunites the hamlet of Ħal Farruġ with Luqa in the 6th District and the hamlet of Burmarrad with St Paul’s Bay in the 12th District. Additionally, several streets in Ħaż-Żebbuġ that were hived off in the 2021 changes will be reunited with their community in the 7th District.

The proposal sees Mġarr’s 3,734 voters being shifted from the 7th District to the 12th District and Mdina’s 176 voters from the 11th District to the 7th District.

The 11th District would be the only one to have just two localities – Mosta and Attard. Mosta has the second largest voting population at 17,331 after Birkirkara, which counts 17,621 voters.

PN proposal retains councils’ territorial integrity

Meanwhile, a second proposal put forward by the electoral commissioners nominated by the Nationalist Party suggests a radical overhaul of the districts to avoid splitting up communities.

The plan seen by MaltaToday retains the territorial integrity of all local councils except Swieqi, which would see the 1,296 voters in the Madliena hamlet hived off from the rest of the locality.

Sources privy to the discussions told MaltaToday that the plan put forward by the Labour nominees was approved by the Electoral Commission and the proposal will be handed over to the Prime Minister in a finalised report. It is very likely; the Nationalist nominees will present a minority report as happened in 2021. Both reports will then be tabled in parliament and the changes will only come into effect after a vote. However, parliament may send the report back to the Electoral Commission and ask for it to be revised.

The changes to the electoral boundaries are necessary to ensure that each of the 12 districts in Malta has roughly the same number of voters. The 13th District, which comprises Gozo and Comino, is distinct and the Constitution ensures it remains a single district irrespective of voter population changes.

Three districts required changes

Data seen by MaltaToday shows that three electoral districts saw population changes that surpassed the 5% variance from the average number of voters allowed by the Constitution, and thus necessitated boundary changes.

The 1st District witnessed a reduction in voters that superseded the 5% variance, while the 7th and 12th districts registered an increase in voters. Two other districts – the 9th and the 3rd – were within the 5% variance but only just.

The Constitution states that when drawing up electoral boundaries, the Electoral Commission must take into account geographical proximity and population density of the localities that are grouped together.

The 13 districts elect five MPs each and additional seats are then added to ensure stricter proportionality between votes obtained at first count and parliamentary representation. The proportionality mechanism has had to be used in every election since 2013. Effectively, the corrective mechanism makes gerrymandering of electoral boundaries to favour one party over another irrelevant.

However, the proportionality mechanism only kicks in if two parties are elected to parliament. If a third-party elects MPs, no additional seats will be added and the parliamentary strength of the parties as established by the election outcome will determine who forms a new government.