PN, Labour supporters urged to vote for Green party too

Alternattiva Demokratika has appealed to traditional Nationalist and Labourite voters to include the Green party in their list of voting preferences in the upcoming election to stop the "humiliation" of Maltese democracy.

The new electoral system deal reached between the two main political parties behind the back of AD is nothing more than another attempt to choke out third parties, a livid AD chairman Harry Vassallo told a news conference yesterday.

AD is taking exception to the fact especially that the threshold for a party to be elected to Parliament remains 16 per cent of votes in one district. In practice, this means the PN and MLP are giving themselves strict proportionality and eliminating other parties that fail to reach the threshold in one district, AD insists.

While confirming that AD would be fielding a candidate in each of the districts, Dr Vassallo said his party is determined to keep reminding the PN and the MLP "every day" that there is a right for other parties to be represented in Parliament.

He said that for the third time since 1987, the PN and the MLP had proposed to amend the Constitution in their interests, in defiance of political reality, in fear of democratic change and on the assumption that they can keep a stranglehold on Malta.

By amending the Constitution in order to secure strict proportionality of representation for themselves, they draw attention to the fact that they have deliberately neglected any form of proportionality of representation for anyone else, Dr Vassallo charged.

"In this way they propose to increase the existing detachment of parliamentary reality from the political reality of the country, they discredit the country's democratic institutions and bring irreversible shame upon themselves," he added.

He accused the two main parties of being unable to recognise that the largest segment of the electorate is not Nationalist or Labourite but made up of undecided voters and of people who say they will vote for AD.

More than 40 per cent of the population does not feel represented by its Parliament, Dr Vassallo claimed.

PN and MLP supporters have good reason to be ashamed of the latest electoral move, which Dr Vassallo compared to the MLP's refusal to accept the result of the EU referendum and the PN's manoeuvres to avoid the Zejtun council election.

He said the choice for the electorate in the next election hinges on the existence of democracy in Malta.

"All voters will be asked to exercise their right to vote for more than one party in order to express their commitment to democracy. AD will seek the no. 1 vote of its supporters and will also ask those whose first preference is for another party to express a preference, even their last, in favour of Alternattiva in order to make it clear that they do not want to be a part of the defeat of democracy in their country," Dr Vassallo said. He appealed to journalists to probe the electoral changes, saying they had a constitutional right to see how democracy is being affected.