Electoral changes approved

Constitutional amendments on the electoral system were unanimously approved by Parliament yesterday.

They provide that:

• Gozo will be considered as a whole in one district when electoral boundaries are drawn up;

• When candidates from only two political parties are elected to Parliament but one of the parties is under-represented, extra seats will be credited to reflect the first count votes of that party.

• When candidates from more than two parties are elected and one of the parties has an absolute majority of votes but it is under-represented, it will be credited extra seats to reflect its votes.

In all cases, seat allocation will be based on first count votes. The number of seats in the House has to remain odd. All the changes come into force before the next general election.

At the opening of the sitting, Justice Minister Tonio Borg said the Bill also provided that once this Bill became law, the district boundaries would not be changed before the next general election. Furthermore, the Electoral Register due to be issued next month had to reflect the changes.

Opposition leader Alfred Sant said the opposition agreed with this Bill. This, he said, was the end of a long-running saga.

The Labour Party had long been working to bring about strict proportionality in the allocation of seats. Talks were held between the parties, but in mid-2006, the PN suddenly decided that the talks had reached a stalemate. Therefore, the Bill currently before the House originally only included the constitutional amendments on Gozo.

When the Bill was moved, the opposition had voted against in the second reading stage in July last year, arguing that once Gozo was fully reintegrated in the 13th district, there should be no further changes to the electoral boundaries. The government had disagreed.

Private, unofficial but substantive talks had then been held between MLP deputy leader Michael Falzon and PN general secretary Joe Saliba in the summer of 2006 and the two agreed to go part of the way on strict proportionality, limited to when candidates from only two parties made it to the House.

In December, the MLP, in line with those talks, formally agreed that Gozo should remain one district for the purposes of electoral districts, the other electoral boundaries did not need to be changed before the next election, and there would be strict proportionality in the allocation of parliamentary seats on the basis of the first count votes.

Adjustment would be made by increasing the number of parliamentary seats.

Dr Sant said the current electoral boundaries were much fairer than those of recent elections and they would not need to be changed even after Ghajnsielem was moved back to the 13th district.

In the past three elections the MLP was under-represented in Parliament as a result of the way the boundaries were drawn up, with fatal consequences with regard to the 1996 legislature.

It was clear that the increase in the number of voters in Gozo, beyond the constitutional limits on the size of electoral districts was artificial since many Maltese, ordinarily resident in Malta, were using a Gozo address to benefit from lower ferry tariffs.

Dr Sant said the MLP was surprised that the PN did not move ahead with the agreement reached between Dr Falzon and Mr Saliba.

The proposed legal drafting only made an appearance this summer. The first draft was different from what was agreed and the MLP disagreed with it.

Just over two weeks ago, a new draft was presented to the MLP and it was now reproduced in the amendments with a deadline for approval by September 30 so that they could be applied to the next general election.

All this hurry, clearly, was aimed at enabling the government to call a November election, if the Prime Minister so wanted.

Dr Sant said he was confirming that the opposition agreed with this draft.

The changes, he said, included provisions on voting by the blind, those on a suspended sentence, Gozo and strict proportionality.

The issue over Gozo was well covered and it was now laid down that the electoral boundaries would otherwise not be changed.

The MLP also agreed that proportionality would be calculated on the basis of the first count vote.

As to the allocation of seats, there were three scenarios.

The first was when two parties were elected with one having an absolute majority. In this case, for purposes of proportionality, the votes given to un-elected parties would not be calculated.

The party which was under-represented would be credited with more seats to reflect the first count votes it had won. Decimal rounding would be to 0.5 but the number of MPs had to be odd. Proportionality would be calculated on the basis of the lowest average number of votes per seat won by the disadvantaged party.

When two parties were elected and none had an absolute majority the party having a relative majority, would be guaranteed a majority of seats. In this case too, the allocation of seats for an under-represented party would be corrected by increasing its seats as in the first scenario.

Dr Sant said this Bill was also covering a situation where more than two parties made it to Parliament and one of them had an absolute majority of votes. In 1987, it was agreed that the party having an absolute majority of votes would be guaranteed a parliamentary majority of one. It was now provided that in such a scenario, the parliamentary allocation of the majority party would reflect its electoral strength.

Dr Sant said that had these amendments been in place for past elections, the will of the electorate would have been better reflected.

There would have been no change to the outcome of the 1976 election but the electoral outcome would have been different in 1981. There would have been no change in 1987 and 1992.

In 1996, however, the MLP would have been allocated a three seat majority and not one.

In the 1998 and 2003 elections, the PN's majority would have been three seats, not five.

The MLP, therefore, felt that these amendments would bring about greater fairness and would strengthen democracy.

Dr Borg said the "fatal consequences" which Dr Sant had spoken about should have been applied to the unique 1981 election result when despite the proportional representation system, the PN won an absolute majority of votes but a minority of seats, and stayed in opposition for a whole term. That had never happened before or since.

It was also worth remembering that a price was paid by the PN for the MLP to move the constitutional amendments before the 1987 election, when the guarantee of a parliamentary majority for the party winning a majority of seats was linked to other amendments on neutrality and foreign interference.

The PN had always argued that it made no sense for Gozo to be split between two districts. Agreement was not reached earlier because the MLP had wanted to bring in other changes which were absolutely unacceptable, such that a party winning a relative majority of votes would have been guaranteed a parliamentary majority even when more than two parties were elected to the House. This would have removed the possibility of coalitions between parties which together would have had a greater number of votes. This would have ignored the will of the people.

The government, therefore, had moved the Bill including only the provisions on Gozo.

The Prime Minister speaking in Parliament and himself (Dr Borg) on television, had insisted, however, that the PN wanted a system of proportionality. A difficult, painstaking process followed to ensure that electoral boundaries became irrelevant to the size of the parties in the House at least when two parties were elected or when more parties were elected but one had an absolute majority.

The system agreed provided that whichever party was under-represented would be credited extra seats. Although the parties had agreed on this principle, the actual drafting of the Bill was long and difficult. That was why it had taken so long for the amendments to come before the House. There had been various drafts from both sides which did not cover all eventualities. Even when everything was completed, while he was abroad, he spotted a loophole and further changes were required.

In terms of the Bill, when adjustments were made, no party would ever lose seats but the under-represented party would have more seats credited to it. The major advantage of the new system was that even when a party won an election with a majority of votes and seats but it was still under-represented, more seats would be credited to it. An under-represented opposition party could also be given more seats.

Dr Borg said that because the amendments were voluminous, the Constitution was only being amended to reflect the principle of proportionality.

The workings were being annexed to the General Elections Act and they were being entrenched.

Later in the debate, explaining other amendments, Dr Borg said a suspended sentence would not disqualify a person from voting.

In the case of blind persons, special stationery (Braille) may be provided to enable such persons to vote on their own, unless they requested assistance.

Dr Sant said the opposition backed these amendments. However, Braille would only meet the needs of some of the blind. Facilities were needed to enable all the blind to have the option to vote on their own, such as by a playback system.

Dr Borg agreed, and the Bill was further amended to cover other facilities to help the blind.

The Bill was then approved through all the stages unanimously. It had needed the support of two-thirds of the House for approval.