The non-voters (1)

Although it is obvious that the Labour Party achieved a landslide win in this round of local council elections, the biggest winner seems to be the non-voter. Almost half the people entitled to vote decided they’d rather not bother at all and this is a big message in itself. The political class needs to do a serious evaluation of the reasons for this very low turn-out. There are some points we should think about.

Have the Nationalist and the Labour parties become so indistinguishable, identical in values and ideology...- Mark Anthony Sammut, Gudja

If we leave out the usual opportunists (those who by not voting expect to threaten the party in government to be given a job, promotion or whatever else they dream is their right to get), it seems that an increasing big chunk of voters is getting disillusioned by the political class. For these voters, neither of the two main parties is offering anything new. They feel caught between a rock and a hard place, caught in between two parties that keep acting as reactive followers of public trends instead of pro-active leaders who persuade followers that their philosophy is the best option.

Many would argue that these absentees will vote when a general election comes. While this applies for most of them, the trend from the last general election shows that even on a national level the degree of absenteeism is increasing. One cannot assume that if a general election were called, these absentees will definitely vote, for the same reasons mentioned in the first point. They might be fed up of voting for the rock that has become happy to be slightly better than the hard place.

Some interpret this as a message that people are fed up of parties contesting local council elections and instead would prefer local councils free of political interference. It is true that many voters are fed up of the partisan political rivalry within local councils but the problem is not the involvement of parties in these councils. It is the way some of the councillors elected serve and function. I personally prefer candidates contesting on party tickets than having all of them contesting independently. Parties are after all the political expression of democracy. Elected councillors need something to unite them and drive them forward and if it weren’t parties it would be local areas or band clubs, leading to more pique and ego-driven agendas than the unity instilled by the party ticket. It is up to the councillors to rise above petty partisan politics and base discussions on the common interest of their locality.

One last point: Have the Nationalist and Labour Party become so indistinguishable, identical in values and ideology (or lack of it) that people see no difference between one and the other, causing them to lose faith in the political system? Is the general feeling of the “floating” voter that “it doesn’t matter who is in power, they are both the same”? This should spell warning alarms for the PN. If such a feeling prevails, voters will end up voting for change just for change’s sake. And if people see no difference between its policies and the vacuum offered by Labour, then there’s something really wrong with its policies that is not persuading the discerning voter who does not vote by automatic colour-following. And that needs to be looked into.