Of yet more casualties

I read with interest Michael Falzon's article (The Sunday Times, April 20) and Mark Fenech's letter last Sunday, on the casualties of casual elections. I too am a victim or rather a casualty in this respect.

In the last general election as a new candidate on the 11th district where the PN fielded all of 14 candidates I was the first runner-up after three former MPs were elected, one was co-opted and three others were elected on other districts. With 821 first count votes I was placed well ahead of the next runner-up with 635 first preference votes and certainly ahead of the last candidate with 80-odd first preferences. I managed to hold out till the 17th count and was eliminated with 1,225 votes.

This result at this point, indicated that I was definitely the next most preferred candidate, admittedly of those unelected, on the district.

Come the casual election following the relinquishing of the second seat won by Dr Tonio Borg, and the next preferred candidate gets elected with the least preferred candidate ending up the first runner-up - a perverse result if ever there was one, and definitely a result that does not reflect the voters' preferences.

Why do we have a system where the first preference votes obtained single-handedly by any candidate are disregarded? Why are candidates placed in alphabetical order on the ballot sheet? This alone allows for positive discrimination for those candidates whose surnames are at the top of the list since many people vote from top to bottom after deciding which party they are going to vote for and after writing No. 1 next to their preferred candidate .

Why have casual elections in the first place? Cannot each candidate run on one district only and so avoid the creation of such an anomalous situation? Pot luck has no place in the election of our representatives in Parliament. Our country deserves to be represented by the candidates elected by popular will. This is what a true democracy is all about.