Malta most politically-charged member among 27 EU states

A post-election survey conducted among all 27 EU member states by the European Parliament has confirmed Malta as the most politically-charged country in Europe.

Besides achieving, for the second time running, the best voting turnout result among EU states where voting is not compulsory, 78 per cent of Maltese respondents in the survey said they voted because they felt "very" or "somewhat" close to a political party.

In comparison, in the rest of the EU only 43 per cent said they voted for the same reasons.

The survey, which in Malta was conducted among a sample of 500 respondents, aims at understanding absenteeism in the EU, where on average only 43 per cent turned out at the polling station on election day last June.

According to the survey, the main reasons were that people thought their vote would not really make a difference and that they were not interested in the election.

Although in Malta almost 79 per cent voted, this was still a low turnout compared to the general elections. In fact, on June 6, almost 70,000 out of the 322,000 eligible voters abstained.

Asked when they actually decided to abstain, a significant eight per cent, translating into 5,500 of the non-voters, said they decided to stay at home on the day of the election and 38 per cent of the non-voters said they had decided not to vote "a few months before the election".

The campaign and other events during the last days before the election influenced another five per cent to stay at home on polling day.

Asked to say why they abstained, 29 per cent said they were "not interested in politics" and 78 per cent of Maltese respondents felt it was very important for them to choose who represented them at the EP.

The survey also shows that among the European electorate the Maltese are among those who most feel that voting is a duty. As many as 74 per cent of Maltese respondents said they felt in duty-bound to cast their vote, surpassed only by the Cypriots (78 per cent).

Asked what made them vote in the way they did, 66 per cent of Maltese voters said they always voted (for the same party) as they voted last June.

Malta's politics-mania emerges also in questions made on the campaign itself. According to the survey, the Maltese electorate was the most interested in the campaign, so much so that 89 per cent said they followed the campaign and remembered messages on the media on the importance of voting. The average in the EU stood at 67 per cent.