After the result of the local council election in Mosta ended up favouring a Nationalist Party majority, some people have cried foul because in the first count the Labour Party had a 14-vote advantage (48.4 per cent of votes, a relative majority). Some, clearly unknowing as to how the single-transferable-vote (STV) system works, its advantages and disadvantages, have even compared it to the perverse result of the 1981 general election.

... it’s the national electoral system that needs to learn from the local electoral system and not vice-versa- Mark Anthony Sammut

The biggest advantage of the STV is that it assures the elector that his vote is never wasted. Taking Mosta as an example, the voter was free to vote Alternattiva Demokratika and independent candidates without fearing that this could hand victory to Labour (as happens in the general election due to district divisions). This because the voter is assured that if AD is eliminated from the race, his vote will not be wasted but will be transferred to his second preference, which in Mosta happened to be the PN.

This could be explained as a coalition of the voters who gave their first preference to PN and those who gave a first preference to AD and a second preference to PN. Such a coalition was needed to gain a seat majority.

It’s the most beautiful thing about the STV system: that no vote goes wasted and that when no divisions are involved (the locality is a single and whole constituency, unlike Malta in a national election) it results in the most proportionate and exact adherence to the wishes of the electorate. After all, AD voters made a choice in giving their second preference to a PN candidate and not a PL candidate.

It also urges parties to present the most valid candidates, who not only attract the first preference but also the second, third and fourth preference in a situation where the people are, fortunately, growing wiser than the bipartisan system and are free to experiment with cross-party voting.

The problem with the 1981 election, and all our general elections since then, was the result of the STV system being applied to a constituency divided into separate districts. Before the 1981 election, the PL perfectly understood the deficiency of this system and applied malicious district-boundary manipulation to secure a bigger surplus of the “wasted” votes of the last standing candidate in PN-leaning districts than in those being pro-PL. It led to the PN winning 51 per cent of the popular vote but still obtaining three seats less, something that in a single constituency STV election would not have happened.

This gerrymandering led to perverse results in all the general elections to this day, thus creating the need of constitutional amendments that, though necessary, have actually killed the most beautiful advantages of STV: the freedom of cross-party voting without fearing vote wastages and the need of parties to present valid candidates who keep attracting second, third and later preferences.

Luckily, this still survives at local council and MEP elections. Luckily too, voters are learning the advantage of this system and are experimenting with cross-party voting. This is a step in the right direction because voters are increasingly basing their choices at local council and European level on the validity of the candidates rather than on the party ticket.

If any one tries to propose that the constitutional amendments being applied on a national level start are also put in place at the local level (where no district division exists), I would be the first one to oppose such a change and the first one to refrain from contesting another local council election because this would definitely be a step backwards.

It would turn into reality the fear of the “wasted” vote and stop people from voting with a more open mind. It would enforce the bipartisan mentality at local level, further turning people away from using their vote wisely and from voting at all.

If parties want to ensure that a relative majority turns itself into a majority of seats, it’s up to them to present valid candidates who keep attracting the second, third and later preferences. It’s up to them to convince the voter that all their candidates are valid and not try to force the result they want through fear.

If anything, it’s the national electoral system that needs to learn from the local electoral system and not vice-versa. More on how I believe this can be done later.

The author is a Nationalist member of the Gudja local council.