Lino Spiteri
Fault lines on the way to the polls
Whenever the next general election is held, even if a rejuve-nated Prime Minister drags it out to the last allowable date, it is now clear it will take place along two fault lines. Both have existed for a long time. Both were deliberately left there by the political lass. They are the very imperfect electoral system, with a propensity to yield adjusted one-seat majorities, and the financing of political parties and individual candidates.
The electoral system has long outlived the merit of ensuring that, in a two-party House of Representatives, whichever party gets an absolute or a relative majority will govern. The adjustment mechanism has proven to be not enough.
Examples: in 1996 it gave the Labour Party a one-seat majority when the number of votes it garnered for a very substantial absolute majority should have translated into a three-seatmargin for Alfred Sant.
In 2008 the adjustment mechanism gave the Nationalist Party and Lawrence Gonzi a one-seat plus when their relative majority barely equated to a third of an average quota of votes.
The system remains self-evidently flawed. It is in the interest of any political party that believes in itself to insist on amendments that would ensure the strictest possible proportionality between the number of votes gained and the seats won.
The parties made a half-hearted attempt to agree on suitable amendments.
They should not have been hard to identify, basing on the supremacy of the one-person-one-vote principle, rather than giving the vote the extra weighting implicit in the single-transferable-vote model.
Nevertheless the parties managed to reach final disagreement, rather than continue with honest efforts to reach consensus on an equitable solution.
That leaves the possibility that in the next election the adjustment mechanism will come into play again, in regard of whichever party. That possibility could be a probability.
I do not hold with the view that when we next vote the winning party will be ahead by a thumping lead. I believe the PN and PL will be much closer to each other than the current opinion polls suggest.
Both parties are regrouping. They have obviously decided to target middle-class floating or new voters, which might cause working class voters within their grassroots support to resent the fact.
Resentment or not, the grassroots will cluster around their respective party. Talk about some massive swing could well prove to be more hope and hype than fact.
If the outcome reflects fresh imbalance between votes cast and seats won, and another unjustified one-seat majority, we will be in for fresh bouts of discontent. Whether the emerging Prime Minister is named Lawrence or Joseph he will find it very hard to meet the expectations of all the elected team.
As always, time will tell. No firm forecast can be made. But one can state firmly that thesystem could play its tricksonce more, to the detriment of representative democracy.
The second fault line, financing, is arguably more inimical to democracy. Voting intentions should be swayed by the clash and contrast of proposals discussed in free debate, not by a party’s or candidate’s purchasing power.
That simple truism has nestled in the heart of criticism and proposals made well before Nationalist MP Franco Debono came on the scene. He has added urgency where none existed before.
It is significant that not even the MP’s well-argued proposals, made from a position of considerable strength since he represents Prime Minister Gonzi’s one-seat majority, have elicited any meaningful response.
Gonzi has joined the ranks of Nationalists attempting to publicly massage Debono’s ego, irrespective what they really think of him.
He went out of his way to praise the MP’s latest speech in Parliament, in which he styled himself a reformer, not a rebel, and, much more seriously, as someone who disagreed with his party on ideological grounds. Yet the Prime Minister made not the slightest nod or gesture towards Debono, to the effect that the financing of politics and politicians would be reviewed and revised within a sensible timeframe.
So on will it go, with candidates spending well above the limit stipulated by law, and parties trying to collect as much money as possible to increase their firepower. Already, individual candidates are incurring expenses in their constituencies of a size set to make the intelligent voter blink.
The trend is even evident at local elections level. It has started at the national level as well, with candidates rushing to man their posts in case there really is an early election.
What is worse than the extent of individual or party financing through pennies or well-laundered heavy cash is the fact that no transparency exists.
The spend by individual candidates and parties can be approximately gauged. But there is no telling how the financing is raised.
Parties point to collections from supporters through endless fundraising events. They make no reference to handouts, in money or in kind, by the business community.
Proper updated regulation of the financing of politics should, at the very least, introduce complete transparency, starting with a legally binding, easily audited framework. It is nowhere in sight. The politicians are happy to leave the hidden-money fault line in place.
Why?
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Mr Joseph Fenech
Feb 20th, 09:40
This time Lino Spiteri is more sincere although not completely correct. In 2008 PN gained the most votes. although it did not have an absolute majority. The problem here is that the system does not cater well for a third force. But when talk re electoral law changes were being held it was just Labour who show no will to change and backed out of the talks.
Saviour Cachia
Feb 19th, 22:55
@ Andy Farrugia
I excuse myself i could not reply to you immediately. There must have been also so technical fault. But I tell you straight I am not that much fanatic as you depicted me. When I felt the need i even criticize my Labour Party, but yes I am a Labourite and am proud. I am progressive more then you deem, and defend my principles as I did in the sixties even upon condemnation of being thrown in the mizbla or hell.
I freely believe that majority is supreme and was one of the delegates that way back in 198c/87 voted in favour of amendments in the Constitution so these principle will become part and parcel of our electoral law. But how can the NP ever claim that the 1981-87 Labour Administration was illegal or illegitimate. it won the 1981 general elections on the rules of the game. And no dissent could ever eradicate the written law.
Yes i look forward for a more fair and just elections and wrote about this many times, here and maybe in other websites on line. So let us agree to disagree, but agree on one thing, we are both Maltese and should adopt attitude in the best interest of our country not our party. If you do not want to agree with this, then it is up to you....
Saviour Cachia
Feb 19th, 16:26
@M. Sciberras
Are you a person that abide by the law. So go and fetch what the Constitution of 1981 said about the party who will gain the right to govern in a general election. Simple; the party with the biggest number of seat won by its candidates, not the party with the majority of vote. That was the law. If things aggravate it took two to tango and Eddie Fenech Adami and PN dissent did not help much the cause.
You are not fair to depict Mr. Lino Spiteri in the way you did, as if he was ever a dictator. You know who was a dictator, Archbishop Michael Gonzi, the uncle of Lawrence Gonzi's father. He used all the divine rights to leave the Malta Labour Party out of power, with moral sanctions, burying of Labourites in the mizbla, and all other anti-democratic moves condoned both by the Church and its allied political parties, primarily the Nationalist Party. If you were alive then, how dare you refer to the eighties. Hands off Mr. Spiteri, who was one of the prime victims of the shallow moves by the Church in the sixties. I like Lino's style, very liberal and eyes-opened analysis, no matter whose turn it might be. After all it was looking at the future not the past and it is all our duty to do so, not trample over the will of the majority like Prime Minister (Rector) Lawrence Gonzi did in the issue of the divorce vote. Play the game fair and democratically.
Andy Farrugia
Feb 19th, 17:53
This dyed-in-the-wool, die-hard fanatic is unbelievable. He finds no contradiction in the way he attacks others with his muddled rhetoric and the way he expects others to lay off criticising Mr Spiteri [Hands off Mr Spiteri]. Such a tolerant and progressive frame of mind! As for his hagiographies about past events, well, the less said the better. "Play the game fair and democratically." You wouldn't even know where to start as you have absolutely no conception of the notions of "fair play" and "democracy".
LINA FARRUGIA
Feb 19th, 13:59
I wish to add another fault line, expired ID cards.
Saviour Cachia
Feb 19th, 12:28
See the real and valid message behind Lino Spiteri opinion. The opinion makes utter sense. We the voters cannot afford any more to be taken for a ride. Gonzi is conservative. Muscat in favour of civil liberties. But what is being done to have a government, democratically elected in a just and transparent manner. We have to endure again the present set up in 2013? Have the Parliament the guts to propose changes and if need be put it to the approval of the electorate through a referendum? The referendum will be binding and majority supreme. A complete overhaul of the electoral system and party financing, those are civil liberties too, Joseph. Introduce the system to vote for the party in a separate manner or preference to the selection of candidates on district basis. The vote for the party and not individual will determine who will govern Malta and how many seats should the winning party have in Parliament. Why stay slaves to the question of who got the vote : the candidate thanks to the party or the party thanks to the candidate? This is a civil liberty right for me and I expect some present MPs to move a private bill on this or a house committee to see what the electorate really want? The system to remain the same or changed and fine-tuned to try to minimize the comic-tragic and unstable situation Malta and Gozo find themselves again, following what happened in 1998 and the messa in scena created by Franco Debono during these last weeks? Come on, move and test what the people wants. Then go to the polls. Do not call any election before such reforms..or your conscience has gone haywire in this matter?
M Sciberras
Feb 19th, 11:58
Remember folks...... the writer of this article did not hesitate to serve as a minister in a government that received more seats in parliament despite having less votes than the opposition..... and then used democracy as a bargaining chip in order to amend the Constitution, introducing amongst other things the redundant neutrality clause, while Malta endured tension and violence for five long years...... The dinosaurs seem to have accepted extinction ......sadly, the same cannot be said for politicians of the eighties....
Wenzu Vella
Feb 19th, 13:33
Mr Sciberras, the author of this and many other articles in this news paper has never denied that he was a minister and member of the MLP. No matter what you or your like say, Mr Spiteri served with distinction both as a Minister and as an MP for the MLP.
Mr Spiteri writes with a good heart and honesty and never shied from the truth unlike other articles we read by PN MP’s that in all their time in public life never made mistakes or been on the wrong side of the ledger.
To people like you it is always the PL that are in the bad books. The PN are always the pure and the righteous never done any wrong doing, and always honest, transparent and just. I leave it to the conscience of the PN followers to be the judge of that.
Tommy Vella
Feb 19th, 10:26
In 2008 the adjustment mechanism gave the Nationalist Party and Lawrence Gonzi a one-seat plus when their relative majority barely equated to a third of an average quota of votes.
Are you suggesting that PN should have been given one-third of a seat? Even if so, wouldn't the position have remained the same with regard to voting in parliament? A slim (even if slimmer) majority for the PN?