Voting responsibly

In the aftermath of the European elections I suggest that euphoric partisans of Alternattiva Demokratika should take stock of themselves and stop chastening Nationalist Party voters for restricting their votes to the PN. It is disrespectful of them to chide Nationalist voters for failing to give their ninth preference to Arnold Cassola, even if the failure to do so handed the third seat to the Labour Party.

It seems that the average Nationalist preferred to see a Labourite elected rather than Prof. Cassola. Moreover, there is more than a hint of arrogance in the AD sentiment that Prof. Cassola's votes were somehow of more intrinsic value than the rest. Why shouldn't Louis Grech's share of votes be deemed as valuable as those obtained by Prof. Cassola? Are the Maltese Greens so convinced of their innate worth as to consider themselves more deserving of election than others?

I think that AD should be aware that in the 16th count Joanna Drake had a mere 2,240 votes fewer than Prof. Cassola just before she was eliminated. Dr Drake was simply unlucky that candidates are put in alphabetical order on the ballot sheet as this meant she was listed after David Casa.

Thus, if the transferred PN votes were distributed equally between Mr Casa and Dr Drake, the latter would have obtained a little more than Prof. Cassola, so he would have been eliminated.

It is probable that Dr Drake would have inherited enough of Prof. Cassola's votes to surpass Mr Grech! This assumption is based on the fact that the great majority of those who voted for Prof. Cassola continued voting for PN candidates.

As such, my message to those frustrated Nationalists who voted No. 1 for Prof. Cassola and then continued voting for the PN candidates is this: Dr Drake did not make it by a mere 2,240 vote difference on the 16th count, which is 0.9 per cent of the valid votes cast. Now that is a close call! It is incumbent on us all to reflect deeply and vote with greater responsibility next time around.