Rich, good looking and possibly electable

It's a busy time for recycling. I've just spent a good hour sifting through a stack of glossy papers, trying to decide which few to keep as a souvenir of June 2009 and which to reconsign to the pulp industry. I had brochures, invitations to parties organised by 'friends', and the odd CD (regrettably non-rewriteable).

Fat chance most EP candidates stuck to the €18,000 expenditure capping. In fact, in the case of one or two whose names I won't mention, I alone may well have that amount in brochures among my stack. Am I scandalised? Not really, since, as I see it, the law as it stands is an ass. My first three objections have to do with the reasoning, the fourth with the amount.

Let us first look at the logic behind the law, which goes as follows. In a democracy, citizens should have an equal chance of being elected. Campaign expenditure increases one's chances. Since they can afford to spend more on campaigns, richer people have a better chance of being elected. We must therefore (a) confiscate all property and redistribute it equally, or (b) limit campaign expenditure. Nowadays the favoured solution is usually the latter.

It also solves nothing since, as it happens, wealth is only one of hundreds of variables correlated with electability. Sociological babble apart, I'm saying it is not just wealth that affects one's chances of being elected. How about looks, for example?

One of the first lessons we learn is that the beautiful generally have it easier in life, and that includes campaigning. How about class, which in contemporary society usually means having the 'right' tastes (although 'breeding' still matters to very many)? Does one's perceived class not skew one's chances towards specific segments of the electorate? And how about accent, and a hundred other things - which, at least in Malta, also seem to include gender?

So why pick on money? I suspect it has to do with an unfortunate cultural aversion to money. Like sex, even as we all want more of it, we persist in thinking it's evil. The less tentative answer is that expenditure can be controlled while charisma, softened consonants, chiselled features, and the shape of down below cannot. It is also an answer which leaves us at square one, that is, it is impossible for each of us to have an equal chance of being elected.

Even so, there is a flaw in all this which leads me to the second objection. Expenditure cannot in fact be controlled. The basic tenets of any legislation are that it should be clear and possible to enforce, and this one fails miserably on both counts. Even if all receipts were combed through, to boil down campaign expenditure to the cost of brochures and parties is absolutely ridiculous.

For there are a million other ways in which wealth can be brought to bear on campaigns. Let's say X is a rich candidate with all the requisite toys. X is very much inclined to invite friends for a spot of boating at the the weekend. She also owns a lovely country pile at which she regularly entertains friends of friends, many of whom enjoy plum and influential positions. On the basis of 'money', does X have a better-than-average chance of being elected? Yes. Can the 'expenditure' legislation therefore be enforced? No, because X has a right to boat and party - and it is not clear in any case if these activities classify as 'campaigning'.

My point is that wealth is so inextricably tied up with social life in the broadest sense, that it really cannot be isolated and 'capped'. The distinction between people and profit belongs in bearded leftie cloudcuckooland.

But even if capping were viable, the June 6 results show that the relation between expenditure and success is not at all straightforward. I don't think Simon Busuttil was the richest candidate, for example, and yet he got 68 000 votes. Why? Because, among other things, he was supported by his party to the extent that it almost became a case of SimonPN.

Norman Lowell's campaign couldn't have cost him much more than a decent bottle of sherry, and yet he got almost 4,000 votes. Why? Because, among other things, his xenophobic rhetoric struck a chord with many. Mary Gauci of Libertas was bankrolled by a millionaire, and yet she managed a bare handful of votes. Why? Because, among other things, people had absolutely no idea what she stood for.

The same exercise could be done for looks, class, or accents, but I'd rather not go there. Voters, however, do, all the time and inevitably.

Fourth, even if we accept - just for the sake of argument - that the logic is sound and the law should be enforced, this still wouldn't give citizens an equal chance of being elected. For the simple reason that there are many thousands of otherwise-fine citizens for whom the prescribed limit is still too high. €18,000 is much more than the average annual income, and not many people would be happy to put several months' salary at stake 'just in case'.

The option would be to lower the limit to, say, €1,000. That would set the vintage Gestetner market abuzz, but it would also leave nasty ink blots on our letterboxes.

In sum, the expenditure legislation is a ridiculous idea that is more at home with broody teenagers than in a grown-up society that understands the meanings and limitations of money. Electoral success is a bit like a complicated mechanism. If one can't find the funds to oil the wheels, chances are the only seating one deserves is found on a beach.

mafalzon@hotmail.com