Oisin Jones-Dillon, Xemxija
A vote for EU citizens
I refer to the report AD At Loggerheads With Electoral Commission Over Registration Of EU Citizens (August 28), appositely coinciding with the 45th anniversary of Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech in which he declaimed: "We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote..."
The ongoing public debate regarding the enfranchisement of 16- and 17-year-olds, therefore, leaves a much more immediate, compelling democratic deficit neglected and unaddressed.
It concerns the 11,000 resident non-Maltese EU citizens who, unlike Maltese nationals, are at present denied their lawful right to enrol on the electoral register for the European Parliament elections scheduled to be held in Malta and Gozo next year.
What could their impediment possibly be? Are these taxpayers deemed too mature to be eligible or does it connote a corollary to the 'A' printed on their identity cards? Are they considered too alien to qualify?
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Nathan Young
Sep 4th 2008, 20:21
I am a non-Maltese citizen,I have been here since 2004 and have the letter 'A' on my I.D. card.
I also have 'Freedom of Movement' in the Rebublic of Malta stamped on my passport. Since May 2004 I have voted in the European Parliament and Local Council Elections. I am not permitted to vote in a General Election not being a Maltese Citizen.To become a Maltese citizen I have to have been married to my Maltese wife for five years and prove that we are still living together. I shall be applying next year.