Cassola not too hopeful of Italian election

Alternattiva Demokratika's Arnold Cassola is not raising his hopes too high about the possibility of winning a seat in the Italian Parliament but he's confident that contesting the April 9 election with Romano Prodi's centre-left coalition will be "a great experience". Prof. Cassola, who was recently chosen by the Italian Verdi to be on the list of candidates running for a seat in the Camera dei Deputati on the European district (comprising all of Europe, including Turkey and Russia), has both a Maltese and an Italian passport and this made him eligibile to run for the Italian parliament.

Speaking to The Times yesterday, Prof. Cassola explained that besides the parliamentarians and senators elected from the Italian peninsula, Italy's reformed electoral system provides for 12 parliamentary seats and six senate seats to be filled by candidates elected by the four million Italians on the Anagrafe degli italiani residenti all'estero (AIRE) - a list of Italian citizens living outside Italy.

The other six deputies' seats are reserved for the remaining three geographic districts comprising North and South America, Central America and Asia, Africa and Oceania.

"The European constituency comprises about two million voters, including the 1,050 living in Malta," Prof. Cassola said.

The Italian voters abroad, who will receive their voting documents by post, shall vote for the different parties and not for individual candidates but may also write down the names of two preferred candidates.

"This will greatly determine who will get elected," Prof. Cassola explained.

The centre-left coalition includes Socialists, Christian Democrats, Greens and Communists. The 12 parliamentary seats will also be contested by the centre-right parties, which will obviously make the fight for the four million votes outside Italy even tougher.

"I'm looking forward to this experience which will enrich my political career for future elections in Malta," Prof. Cassola added.

His candidature as the only Green among the 12 European constituency candidates running for L'Unione in Italy contrasts with the fact that in 2003 he had to fight it out in court in order to vote in a general election in Malta.

At the time, the Malta Labour Party had claimed Prof. Cassola did not satisfy the residence requirements established by law in order to be eligible to vote but the Magistrates' Court later threw out the application. He was already living in Brussels while serving as general secretary of the European Greens. The Magistrates' Court argued that the MLP had failed to prove its claim that he did not satisfy the requirement of residence.

In a ruling which followed, the Civil Court had set out a broader definition of the term residence, stating it meant more than simply habitual physical presence in a country but included in its meaning periodic absences from the country. Thus, a person temporarily absent from Malta for reasons of study, health, work or a mission should not be considered a non-resident of the country.