Youth groups rally over lost votes

Four youth associations yesterday joined forces in front of Parliament in Valletta to express their disappointment and anger that 2,800 young people will not be able to vote in the divorce referendum on May 28.

Representatives of GWU Youths, Move, Labour Youth Forum (FŻL) and Moviment Liberali presented a letter to Members of Parliament in solidarity with those who, they say, have been denied a fundamental right to express their opinion in the referendum.

Last week the Electoral Commission decided it would base the referendum on the October 2010 electoral register instead of the one that will be published later on this month, meaning those who just turned 18 will not be able to vote.

Initially the organisations had been calling on young people in a Facebook group called Tħallejna Barra! – We have been left out – to gather outside Parliament.

However, some Facebook users who accessed or commented on the group’s page were contacted by the police and told that a permit for the gathering of more than 10 people had to be requested 48 hours in advance, FŻL president Daniel Micallef said.

FŻL, therefore, took responsibility for the peaceful demonstration and asked young people not to attend but let their representatives voice their anger.

Mr Micallef added that FŻL did not want the event to turn into a partisan one.

The Electoral Commission’s decision was based on legal advice that it could not delay the publication of a presidential writ which would set in motion the process leading up to the referendum. This was after Labour’s motion for a referendum on divorce, approved by Parliament on March 16, stipulated that the writ had to be signed within 15 days, therefore, not later than March 31.

The two parties are blaming each other for this state of affairs, with Labour accusing the other side of rejecting an agreement that had already been reached within the Commission.

Addressing the media outside Parliament, Mr Micallef criticised the “Machiavellian and anti-democratic manner in which people are being deprived of their right to voice their opinion”.

He alleged that the country had adopted new means of intimidation and the police were keeping tabs on youths through social media.

“We’re disappointed that the government does not seem to want to find a solution,” he said, adding that those deprived of their rights would not forget those who were responsible for this deprivation.

Front Against Censorship spokesman Ingram Bondin, who was at the press conference, accused the police of using social media to spy on people.

“By threatening that they could take the demonstrators to court, the police were breaking rights of the freedom of assembly. These outdated laws do not respect basic human rights,” he said.

“If the government and the opposition had reached an agreement, why did they backtrack?

“We’re not here to play a blame game. We’re just fighting for basic human rights,” Mr Micallef said when asked whose responsibility it boiled down to, only to insist that the “the blame was absolutely the government’s”.

FŻL expressed anger at the absence of representatives from the National Youth Council (KNŻ), which had been invited but who opted not to reply to the invitation.

In the meantime, the recently elected executive board of KNŻ issued a statement appealing to the authorities to embrace youths’ active role in society, even if this required amending the current electoral laws.

It also encouraged eligible youths to exercise their right to vote in next month’s referendum.

Move said the anti-democratic decision taken by the Electoral Commission showed the government was alienating youths from decisions of concern to society.

The Nationalist Party also issued a statement, reiterating that the mess was Labour’s fault. Labour Leader Joseph Muscat, it said, had been advised that the resolution he presented in Parliament should ask the President to issue the referendum writ on April 18, so that a new Electoral Register would have already been issued on April 15.

However, the PN said, Dr Muscat ignored the advice – first on February 22, then on March 15.

As a result 2,800 people were being denied the right to vote.