The Electoral Commission has established one certain fact: There are certainly 143,000 of us voters who have decided that Malta is to become a member of the European Union. No-one can deny this fact, not even the efficient electoral machine of the Malta Labour Party.
The reason for this is simple, namely because it represents the official result of the March 8 referendum. A fact which cannot be denied by the Alfred Sant-George Vella-Alfred Mifsud 'partnership' axis.
The Electoral Commission has also officially established that according to the electoral laws of Malta and the Referendum Act the Yes vote today represents the largest political group in Malta on the EU. In fact the Electoral Commisssion has quantified that the Yes voters outstrip the No political group by nearly 20,000 votes.
Not only. The analysis of the vote by nearly all the commentators make it clear that the Yes appeal to voters from all the political groupings of the Labour, Nationalist, Alternattiva and floating voters was heeded. Here again the Electoral Commission has established that 54 per cent of voters voted Yes.
It is a historic fact that in no electoral contest since independence has any political grouping won such a convincing electoral victory over its rivals.
These are the facts which I repeat have been established by the Electoral Commission as established by the Constitution. Facts which make me more than proud of forming part of the Yes majority which now legitimately, legally, constitutionally and above all politically constitutes the latest majority of the electorate.
This is the one and only reading of the historic referendum result of March 8, as established and verified by the Electoral Commission in terms of the law.
These incontrovertible facts lead to the next simple political fact. The new Yes majority of the electorate must become conscious of its political clout and of the impact which it is going to have in the political life of our country.
Again, put simply, our vote will now become the determining factor in any political decision which this country will take and just as the EU debate has rightly been influenced by the various lobbies, be they hunting, commercial, trade unions; after March 8, the Yes vote has become the biggest non-party lobby made up certainly of 143,000 eligible voters from all political ideologies.
Our voice and above all our vote cannot be ignored by the political parties as long as we remain determined as we proved to be in the hotly contested referendum campaign, where 91 per cent of the electorate honoured the referendum by voting. The Yes vote is a voice which the traditional political parties cannot and must not ignore.
The Yes vote has already adopted its political programme for the future. It is the package which was negotiated by the government with the collaboration of so many sectors of Maltese society with the EU. It is there for all to see. This is the package which the majority of the electorate has accepted at the referendum. It is the package which the Yes vote now wants to see respected in the electoral manifestoes of the PN, MLP and AD and of any other party which may contest the general elections of April 12, as the reflection of the will of the new majority.
The Yes majority now must judge these manifestoes in terms of the recognition which these political parties will express in regard to new political realities arising from the March 8 referendum.
Above all the Yes majority must judge the political manifestoes by the respect which the political parties show for the referendum process itself, as the most direct and democratic means of establishing the will of the electorate on specific questions of national importance.
Therefore, the 143,000 of us representing 53.6 per cent of those who cast valid votes in the March 8 electorate have proudly voted for a new future for Malta and are still determined to do so to defend both the importance of the referendum and of the result itself.
In fact this new Yes majority has been developing since 1998, when the electorate defrosted Malta's application to join the EU and gave the political mandate to Dr Fenech Adami's government to recommence negotiations for accession with the EU.
The electoral mandate was not limited to that alone. The electorate decided that on completion of the negotiations the final decision on accession would not be taken by the Nationalist government but for the first time since independence by a national referendum in terms of the Referenda Act, that is by the Maltese people themselves.
Dr Fenech Adami's government had the parliamentary strength to go through it alone because of the five-seat majority it enjoyed in parliament. Yet Dr Fenech Adami's promise to the electorate was kept and the electorate replied by honouring the referendum with its massive turnout.
Unfortunately, the immediate aftermath of the referendum has shown, at least up till now, that there are still those who wish to put the decision taken by the majority of voters at the referendum in the deep-freeze.
To be perfectly honest this is a scenario which is very difficult to understand strictly from the democratic aspect since it flaunts not just any opinion poll which as we know represent bible truth to our political class but even worse it antagonises a real political majority, born at the referendum, objectively confirmed and certified by the Electoral Commission of over 143,000 voters who have decided that the package with the EU represents their future.
The choice is theirs; the vote ours.
To those political pundits who have attempted to draw propagandistic consolation from "decimal points" here and "fractions" there my only reply, is that after the March 8 referendum the 143,000 voters are the only certain tangible fact, not subject to interpretation and ready and available to all those who believe that the future of Malta lies firmly in Europe within the European Union.