Making it to Parliament by means of 'co-option' and then immediately being appointed Leader of the Opposition is certainly not an everyday occurrence in Maltese parliamentary history. Indeed, I believe that this is the first time it has ever happened. The Labour Party's efforts to pooh-pooh the notion that this was no normal way of doing things is simply an effort at trying to paper over what, in democratic terms, was a clumsy exercise.

The 'co-option' process - if one may call it so - is a strange method of 'electing' a member of the House of Representatives and results from the weird way in which our system of proportional representation works: fine in theory but not so fine in practice.

Our electoral system elects individuals to represent individuals. It does not elect parties into power, although it was somehow tweaked to do so relatively recently. Simply put, the candidate who obtains the electoral quota is elected. He or she can get all these votes directly in the form of first preferences or partly indirectly by the addition of transferred votes to first preference ones. The quota is the minimum number of votes that can be mathematically obtained by only a pre-set number of candidates.

A Member of the House therefore represents those voters whose ballot papers are in the packet that was assigned to him on the last count. When there is a vacancy because the MP had to give up a seat after being elected from two electoral divisions or because the MP resigns or passes away, the system calls for a casual election.

In this 'election' the packet of ballot papers relative to the seat that is vacant are opened up and assigned to contesting unelected candidates. The candidate that 'gets' 50 per cent plus one of these votes - possibly after yet another process of vote transfers - is declared elected, presumably representing those electors whose ballot papers had led to the election of the MP whose seat was vacated.

The system, however, crashes straight into a big blank wall when the vacated seat had already been assigned through a 'casual' election. One does not reassemble the packet of ballots that had been re-assigned during the casual election and repeat the process without the candidate that had been elected. Parliament simply chooses any Tom, Dick or Harry to fill in the vacant seat, the only obligation being that this person must be of the same principles and beliefs of the one whose seat was vacated. Theoretically, therefore, the choice of Joseph Muscat to fill the seat vacated by Joe Cuschieri was at the mercy of the PN majority that could refuse to appoint Muscat an MP. In spite of the fact that some doubt its very existence, Maltese democracy is above such shallow moves and it is customary that Parliament co-opts the person indicated by the political party that had won the seat in the actual election.

To say that Muscat's 'election' to Parliament was normal par for the course is plainly disingenuous. It is true that he is the fourth party leader to become MP in this manner, but this is misleading. Both Eddie Fenech Adami and Alfred Sant were co-opted as MPs after the death of an MP who had been elected via a casual election. They had also previously unsuccessfully contested the general election. In both cases they were appointed backbenchers to replace backbenchers. Their rise to the party leadership happened later and after they were elected MPs in a subsequent election.

The 'election' of Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici to Parliament was perhaps the first ever orchestrated co-option. This was made possible after the resignation of Paul Xuereb who had been elected MP via a casual election.

Even so, Xuereb was at the end of his political career and following his resignation, he immediately returned to Parliament as Speaker. Later he was appointed Acting President of the Republic and oversaw the 1987 transition of government in the most honourable and righteous way possible.

Clearly Muscat's way of entering Parliament was inspired by the path that Dom Mintoff had drawn up for KMB. The Cuschieri move, however, bears no comparison with that of Xuereb. Considering comments that Cuschieri made to the media, it does seem that the whole story of what led to his giving up his seat has still to be written.

All these complications that many hardly comprehend are the inevitable consequence of our electoral system that needs to be radically changed. I tend to agree with Alternattiva Demokratika's suggestion that we should emulate the electoral system used in Germany. There are no casual elections there and no co-options. Seats that are not filled by members elected directly by the voters are assigned to candidates in the official party list according to the order of preference in that list.

In Malta, political parties have traditionally shied away from being obliged to draw up such lists. Unfortunately, this is the psychological barrier that has been hindering a radical and intelligent reform of our electoral system.

micfal@maltanet.net

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