Insuring against Labour

There seems to be an orchestrated effort from the Nationalist party to scare voters from voting AD (their allies in the yes campaign). Ironically, by doing so the Nationalists are throwing away an insurance against the eventuality of Labour gaining government without obtaining an absolute majority.

The most recent amendment in the Constitution states that in the eventuality that a party obtains the relative majority and only two parties are represented in parliament, then the party with the relative majority has the right to have the majority of seats. Therefore, in the eventuality that Labour obtains 49 per cent of the vote, the PN obtains 48 per cent and Alternattiva obtains three per cent of the vote (and no AD MPs are elected), Labour would be elected in government by having seats added. This result is a very realistic possibility as it reflects the summation of the past three rounds of local elections (the 1996 and 1998 election results reflected the results the parties obtained in the preceding three rounds of local elections).

How can the Nationalist voters insure against such an eventuality? The answer is simple - they should vote as they usually do (vote one to the PN candidate and proceed on the other PN candidates) and then after voting all PN candidates proceed on to the AD candidates. If the majority of the PN voters do so and the MLP obtains the relative majority, all the PN will have to do would be to request its candidates on a particular district not to contest the casual-election for a particular seat vacated by a PN candidate elected on two districts.

Since a candidate in a casual election only needs half a quota to be elected, then even with half a quota of nines, AD would elect a candidate. Once there are more than two parties represented in parliament then the relative majority clause does not kick in.

The risks of the above strategy are practically nil as it would be in the PN's discretion to choose whether or not to elect the AD candidate. The PN will just the same master a majority in parliament (given the current district composition, even if the PN obtains 7,000 votes fewer than Labour, it would still elect three more seats than Labour and, thus, by surrendering one seat to AD it would still master an absolute majority in parliament) and the PN would be sure of having its European dream realised.