With the Nationalist Party losing about 11,000 votes in Saturday’s election it is not about the proverbial lost sheep but more about “losing the herd”, according to a top former party official.
It is not about the proverbial lost sheep because losing 11,000 votes sounds like losing the herd
“There is a lot of anger out there because people feel they are being ignored both at a local and national level,” Frank Portelli, a former PN president, said yesterday.
Reacting to the PN’s dismal showing – it shed more than five percentage points when compared to the previous results in the same localities – Dr Portelli said Saturday’s election was the last opportunity for the electorate to send a message to the government before the next general election.
“Elections are lost by governments and are not usually won by the opposition. It is not about the proverbial lost sheep because losing 11,000 votes sounds like losing the herd.”
With 41 per cent of the electorate choosing to stay at home it would spell trouble for anyone who chooses to ignore this message, he added.
Voter abstention was higher in PN-leaning localities and, although the Labour Party won by almost 56 per cent of the vote, the raw numbers show it only increased its tally by 261 votes over its past results.
This seems to suggest that people, who may have voted PN in the past, preferred to stay at home rather than vote Labour, opening up Pandora’s Box when it comes to interpreting the local result on a national level.
Writing in The Times yesterday, former Labour minister and columnist Lino Spiteri said the outcome pointed towards “a PN far from its pomp” and “a Labour Party progressing towards its peak” but cautioned that it did not make the general election result a foregone conclusion.
But Dr Portelli believes the marginal victory of the PN in the 2008 general election – it won by some 1,500 votes – should not be forgotten. “We have been hearing public pronouncements that the electorate’s message has been received but the electorate is now asking for remedial action and not for more empty words. The PN would pay a heavy price at the next general election if it does not seek to make amends.”
His message echoes that of PN backbencher Franco Debono, who told timesofmalta.com yesterday the results were a clear message to the “oligarchy”.
“The people said ‘we want our country back’ and now they are waiting for accountability and resignations,” Dr Debono said.
For historian Henry Frendo, a former PN mayor in Attard and involved in the drafting of the local councils law in 1993, the significant abstention has much to do with deteriorating voter perception of the effectiveness of councils.
“We can blame the rain but that only partly explains why people did not bother to vote,” he said. The question remained how deep political parties should be involved in local councils, he said, taking umbrage at the description of mayors according to their political affiliation.
“This debases the idea of local government because a mayor represents the locality irrespective of the political party he contests with,” he said.
Prof. Frendo believes the excessive intrusion of political parties in the way councils are administered may also be partly to blame for the difficulty to recruit valid candidates.
“It is also about people and I feel the level of candidates has deteriorated over the years as parties become more wary of independent-minded people,” he said.
ksansone@timesofmalta.com