Editorial

There is nothing we relish more in Malta than an election, be it a local council shindig, a 96 per cent turnout of the electorate to vote in a general election or, as will be the case next June, the selection of five candidates for the European parliament.

It will not be long before the political parties swing into action. The Malta Labour Party has already done so. Alternattiva Demokratika has been equally swift in getting off the mark.

Prospective candidates for the job, some of them in the MLP stable who had shied away from all things EU and prayed God to deliver Malta from membership of the EU (U-turns are for U-turns), have been trying to attract attention with their contributions to the press for some time now.

But you know that matters are hotting up when a political party, in this case Labour, sends nearly 1,700 writs to individuals claiming that their names should be struck off the electoral register. That constitutes quite a chunk of voters the opposition wishes to see disenfranchised for one reason or another.

The MLP's general secretary has remarked that his party was merely abiding by the law, a proposition that caused Harry Vassallo, Alternattiva's chairman, to remark: "It is certainly not a European attitude". This is unlikely to make the opposition cringe. Whether the Nationalist Party will follow suit with a block of votes it wishes to see removed from the electoral register remains to be seen.

The court has already given a clearer indication on whether Maltese citizens spending time overseas can vote or not and in what circumstances. Thus, one would have expected a more logical approach by the MLP.

A more interesting element in the June elections will be the 8,000 non-Maltese who are entitled to vote in five months' time. These residents of Malta will each receive a letter from the Electoral Commission asking them whether they intend to exercise their right to vote, locally.

EU citizens do not only have the right to vote. They may also, if they are so inclined, stand as candidates with the blessing of the European Parliament Elections Act, which was approved by the Maltese parliament last November. If they wish to vote, they must make their intentions known by the end of March. It would be one for the books were five EU residents in Malta to win all five seats! The possibility, however, is indeed remote.

One thing is certain. Unlike the turnout for these elections in most European countries, which has been declining since the first were held in 1979 for the European parliament, ours will in all probability top 70 per cent of the electorate. The adrenalin of elections, contesting them, at least, is in our bones. Still, the June experience will be interesting at a number of levels.

Its outcome will determine whether voters have wised up to the paradoxical, some think untenable, position, of those candidates who 12 months ago were regarding membership of the EU as a quasi-satanic state. Many are also wondering whether the result of the June elections will reflect the electorate's reaction to the rise in the VAT rate or the ill-thought out measure over inherited property. Or, as some others question, will the electorate put local politics to the side and concentrate on voting into the European parliament the best of the talent available on the ballot?

What is already clear is that it will be an uphill struggle for some and a roller-coaster ride for none.