Electoral rules

This is a strictly personal opinion, and I have not discussed what follows with anyone in the Malta Labour Party. It is based on the press reports that the government has decided on one issue to unsettle the electoral rules, which fortunately, in our case, are regulated by the Constitution. In this area of the Constitution, a two-thirds majority of Parliament is required. The Government may present a bill for ordinary approval before Parliament, well knowing that it will not obtain a two-thirds majority, but in the process it considers that it has gained political mileage with the Gozitans, including the Maltese who have opted to show an address in Gozo on their identity cards, while living in Malta.

Electoral rules have one particular hallmark. They must ensure fairness. Under present rules we cannot say that this fairness is assured. Proportionality has assumed a different meaning in the Maltese context. I do regret that I did not fight my point strongly enough in 1987, when the winning side was only assured a majority of one. Is the present situation respectful of the principle of proportionality on first count votes? The answer is definitely no. The only occasion when we had proportionality, without any gerrymandering, was in the elections for the European Parliament.

The point on which we seem to agree is that all parties consider that the first count votes should be the rule to determine the relative strength of the parties represented in Parliament. Or is this, too, in doubt? If we are agreed then it is high time that ballots are printed differently from what has been the practice until now, and that counting should start in each electoral district on the basis of a separation of the votes into the pigeon-holes of the parties rather than of the individual candidates. That process will come at a later stage. In this way, an official result of the relative strength may be obtained within hours.

Individual members...

Definitely I would object to any change which would delegate to the parties the right to draw up lists of electable candidates, with the choice being purely that of the party, which is then given a mandate to choose its elected representatives. This happened in Italy three weeks ago. The citizen had no choice of candidates even in the same party. For our system, and given our dimensions, there is no fairer process than the transferable vote. It guarantees the choice of the citizen, rather than the party.

What has given rise to so much argument, and gerrymandering, is that every party can predict whether it has a majority in a constituency. If there is a majority, even of one vote, then in that constituency there is the prize of the majority which is one candidate. With some intelligent demarcation of constituencies, a governing party may assure itself of a bigger majority of seats than it has of votes. If things turn badly for that party, then the Constitution provides that there would be additional members for the other party, with an additional one as a prize for its majority in the whole country. The size of Parliament becomes rather elastic. It may be convenient for individual candidates. Some may find themselves in Parliament because it has been enlarged. But what the country should be bothered about is fairness in the election of its government.

A solution

In my personal view, there is a solution. This would be based on the proportion of the first count votes, and on a fixed size of parliament. For example, Party A gets 51%, Party B gets 48%, while Party C gets 1%, while there are 65 seats to be filled. Party A will be entitled to 33.15 members, Party B would have 31.24, while Party C would only have less than one member. Party A against Party B loses, as the latter's decimal figures are greater. So the result would be 33 seats to 32. To guarantee governability, there must be a threshold for minor parties, otherwise a minor party may have excessive strength, especially when no party has a majority.

Then what about the individual members? The present system should be retained, and in every constituency, the first four members are elected as we are accustomed to. Having completed this phase, the remaining 13 members would be partitioned according to the proportion obtained in the first count votes between the parties. If Party A still has to elect seven to get its full share, then the first seven candidates according to the number of first-count votes obtained in the different constituencies, would be elected. The remaining six would go to the first six candidates of Party B. Mathematically, it would not be possible to have six elected from one constituency and four from another.

What use will there be for gerrymandering? The Electoral Commission has only to guarantee the approximate equality of constituencies, within the Constitutional parameters. The drawing of boundaries would not affect the overall result, and that is something that should be secured.

This may be a pious hope. If anyone says that we had fair results since 1987 (besides 1981), then someone must be laughing.