Denial of right to vote from abroad

The South Africans will be going to the polls to elect a new government tomorrow. Like many other countries, South Africans who live outside their country are eligible to vote in the election. A total of 18,000 of them have registered to vote, with 7,500 registered voters in London alone. Hundreds have queued to cast their vote outside South Africa House in the last few days.

So a country which is considered, by our standards, to be backward, gives its citizens living abroad the right to vote while Malta, supposed to be an advanced nation and a member of the European Union, denies its citizens this right and compels them to come over here to exercise their right as Maltese citizens.

More insulting is the recent fact that the Opposition has objected even to the facilities offered to Maltese citizens to vote before going abroad to represent their country.

Nobody except our MPs knows the reason why Maltese citizens who happen to be abroad are not provided with facilities to vote in our embassies.

Judging by the recent objections from the Opposition it seems that we still have to wait for some time before we can say that the Maltese will come in line with people of other countries in this regard. In the meantime those living abroad have to be content with the present cumbersome situation until the time our politicians decide to change the law and treat the Maltese citizens as grown-ups.