Editorial

Opposition Leader Alfred Sant appears to have caught the Nationalist Party on the back foot on Sunday when he announced agreement on amendments to the electoral system. At first Nationalist Party deputy leader Tonio Borg said he had not been informed of such an agreement and it was only on Monday that the PN confirmed that a deal had indeed been struck.

In view of this agreement, the Prime Minister will now be recommending to the Nationalist parliamentary group to endorse changes that would secure strict proportionality between votes and seats when only two parties are elected to the House.

This is an important step forward, fine-tuning the process that began in 1987 with the constitutional amendment to ensure a parliamentary majority for that party that wins a majority of first-count votes. To date, when only two parties are elected to the House, if the party winning an absolute or relative majority of votes is under-represented, seats are credited to it to give it a majority of one. Now it appears that the number of seats credited will reflect the electoral majority that party would have won.

This is, of course, proportionality as the two large political parties see it. The new arrangement will be fair and logical only for as long as two political parties contest the election and have candidates elected to the House - a sure sign the two big political parties are in perfect harmony when it come to defending their territory.

It is hugely unfair on other parties - Alternattiva Demokratika yesterday termed the arrangements "undemocratic". It was ironic that Dr Sant's remarks were reported by The Times on the same page as a report that another political party may be on the way.

The comments made by the PN and the MLP on their agreement made no mention of an electoral threshold. Therefore, as at present, a political party winning thousands of votes nationally but not garnering enough votes to have a candidate elected from one district will effectively see its votes wasted. Such voters will not enjoy proportional representation in the House.

This makes it almost impossible for meaningful alternatives to emerge, thus perpetrating a bi-party situation where the electorate may be forced to choose the lesser of two evils.

The parties may on paper accept the eventual emergence of other political forces - the PN said it had turned down a Labour proposal for a party winning a relative majority of at least 45 per cent to be given the right to an absolute majority of seats, even if other parties represented in Parliament would together have more votes - but in practice that is next to impossible as things stand now.

Why hasn't strict proportionality of representation been extended to all parties elected to the House, and not just two? As it is, electoral boundaries will continue to have a bearing on the strength of the parties if candidates from three parties do get elected. And the problems of the past could resurface again.

In the case of Gozo, agreement has been reached for it to form one electoral district, independently of its population size. Such an arrangement makes sense.

Unfortunately, though, there was no word on other changes needed to the electoral system, such as eligibility to vote by Maltese working abroad. They are citizens too enjoying full sovereign rights, including the right to choose the government.