I refer to President George Abela’s letter sent through his official channel (The Sunday Times, January 16) in response to my article “Let’s be fair”.

I stand corrected that our President was a member of the Electoral Commission in 1987, not in 1981, and I apologise for the mistake in the dates.

However, I have to point out that the mistake does not change my argument. The 1987 election was as gerrymandered as the one in 1981.

It was not thanks to the Electoral Commission that democratic justice was finally done in 1987, but thanks to the new clause which dictated that the party that won 50 per cent plus one of the votes was the winner.

Without this clause, Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici’s and Dom Mintoff’s Labour Party would have usurped government in 1987 against the will of themajority of voters for the second consecutive legislature.

The 1987 Electoral Commission had plenty of ugly, very ugly evidence to show what could happen to this country if the will of the people is thwarted. Yet it did not pay attention to this evidence and went ahead to produce yet another gerrymandered result. I condemn any gerrymandering during any other election in our history.

Be that as it may, the key point I made in the original article was that a flourishing democracy does not allow the past to hold it to ransom. I argued in favour of forgiveness and a benign forgetfulness about the unsavoury bits of our past. “A political heart which does not allow time to heal wounds,” I wrote, “produces nothing but dark ill-will and even darker politics.” I praised Dr Abela, not criticised him.