Will the salmon be king?

In my last article I spoke extensively about the pattern noted over a number of years when national votes were taken. I do opine that EU membership has disturbed the Maltese political waters for good. Today I shall focus on local council elections, make some comparisons and give personal views.

The local elections are now in their fifth round. By "round" I mean the totality of votes cast in elections taking place over a period of three years and covering all local councils in the Maltese islands.

The first round, held between November 1993 and March 1994, resulted in a 1.99 per cent majority in favour of independent candidates over Nationalist Party candidates. This round took place under a PN government. Most independent candidates were MLP-affiliated. However, Labour's passivity and a number of PN-affiliated candidates contesting as independent have to be taken into consideration when analysing this round of local elections.

The second round - with elections held in March 1996, 1997 and 1998 - resulted in 7.94 per cent majority in favour of PN candidates vis-à-vis the independent candidates. This round took place when the Labour Party was in power.

The third round, covering the March 1999, 2000 and 2001 elections, resulted in a 0.61 per cent gap in terms of votes in favour of the PN; this in the first three years of the PN's return to government. This round was also the first time that MLP contested the elections with a proper campaign.

The fourth round, covering elections that took place in 2002, 2003 and 2004, resulted in a difference of 2.25 per cent in favour of MLP. Noteworthy is the fact that 2002 was the pre-referendum and pre-election year and 2003 is the referendum and general election year. The elections for the European Parliament were held in 2004. The fifth round, the first election of which took place last year, is, of course, the post-EU membership round. The first election in this round resulted in a serious and huge vote loss for the PN, as will be discussed later.

Local council elections on the one hand seem to yield results that are diagonally opposed to those of general elections. They tend to be a means of how to express discontent and put in place more checks and balances for the national government. Alternatively, however, one can argue that the results achieved by independent candidates pre-1998 hinted at Labour's defeat in 1998. If the same pattern were to be followed, the local elections could give a clear indication of a PN defeat in the 2008 general election.

Statistics also show that public discontent was already present in the pre-2003 election years. They also seem to suggest that the 2003 election was won on the premise of importing a third power to control two local partisan giants.

Personally, I do think that EU membership has shocked the PN, the effects of which will continue to influence its political performance drastically and for long. In 2003, the PN won 51.7 per cent of the votes in local elections, including in localities considered as "PN strongholds".

In 2004, the MLP shot up to an absolute majority of 50.2 per cent. This also meant that, in one year, Labour had gained 4,400 votes from various localities when compared to the 2003 general election and 3,300 votes in relation to the 2001 elections. The increase was due to a PN-MLP swing.

In the 2005 local elections, the PN anticipated a political trauma. It withdrew the nominations of its candidates for the Zejtun and Marsa elections minutes before closing time. This meant that no elections were held in the two localities.

And, yet, the final result was an exceptional four per cent drop in the number of votes won by the PN and an increase of five per cent for the MLP side when compared with the previous elections in the same localities three years earlier. A closer look shows that in these elections the PN won 44.06 per cent of the votes (Marsa and Zejtun excluded). The PN had lost 4.1 per cent of the votes won in 2001. The MLP's total votes went up from 48.5 per cent in 2001 to 53.2 per cent in 2005 - an increase of 4.7 per cent. This meant a swing of 9.12 per cent in favour of the MLP. If Marsa and Zejtun were to be included, and taking the votes of the 2001 elections into consideration, the MLP would have won 57 per cent of the votes with the PN scoring way below 40 per cent.

The PN's destiny in the post-EU membership years seems to be that of struggling to keep the traditional 2-4 per cent swing going. The difference in votes between the two major parties is growing, but this seems to be a cause for concern only for the PN as the MLP clings to its traditional 50 per cent +/- share and actually aspires for more. The difference between the two traditional parties is only increasing because the PN is falling way behind. In the EP elections, the difference between the two major parties stood at 8.66 per cent.

Indications of the PN's defeatist attitude can be observed in various of the party's "strategic" moves. The incident that PN general secretary Joe Saliba had with journalists can be considered as a defeatist move, to mention just one example. On the other hand, the nomination of a Labour candidate at Mdina, the unsolved Qui-Si-Sana and Marsascala disputes and former PN candidates standing for election on an independent ticket will all contribute to make the 51.7 per cent vote in favour of the PN in 2003 less likely to be achieved again.

The announcement of a large investment complementing the last-minute painted road markings could also be a bad omen in terms of votes for the party that vehemently thought its heyday would follow EU membership. Since currents pull persistently downstream, this time round, will the salmon still be king?

lornav@onvol.net