Maltese citizen denied a vote (1)

I would like to congratulate correspondent Peter Murray (April 29) for bringing up the interesting subject of voting rights in Malta. First of all I would like to confirm what he says, that anyone who comes into the UK gets all voting rights as soon as he has a permanent address. Actually, a few months after I started working with the Maltese Mission in the UK, I was surprised to find that my name was already on the electoral registry, and I have just received my papers for voting in the European elections. I never filed any applications, I became a voter in the UK automatically.

Not so in Malta. "Foreign Europeans" are not allowed to vote especially in the general elections. It is obvious that this is illegal and unconstitutional by European laws. But what would Mr Murray say to the fact that even if you are a Maltese citizen, living abroad, you can be removed from the electoral registry and denied your constitutional right to vote?

I can confirm this from my own experience when my vote was taken away from me because I had been working as a missionary for two years in Israel. And I can also confirm that this was done to many others, but not to all! In fact, during the last election, hundreds of Maltese citizens who were working abroad, and who had not been on the islands for six months before the election, were allowed to vote just the same.

Now both parties are guilty of unfair practice because they were both involved in this tactic of removing names from the electoral register in the courts just because one was away from the islands before the elections, and also according to one's presumed allegiances. If you were presumed to be a Nationalist, the Labour Party would act against you. If you were a Labourite, the Nationalist party would do the same.

So, if you happen to be working abroad, it means that you are no longer a Maltese citizen. You become an alien, a foreigner with no right to vote. Suddenly, the man behind bars has more rights than you, a law-abiding citizen. And this is still the current situation in "democratic" Malta.

I was told after the election, during which I could not vote, that I could apply to have my vote back, to which I promptly replied that I want my vote back without a new application and with an apology. I am a Maltese citizen, and I have always remained a Maltese citizen even when I went to work abroad. So whoever took away my vote should be punished, and I should be given back my vote without further ado.

However, if this does not happen, I still have my vote in the UK. Thank you, Britain, and shame on you, Malta.