Birdlife Malta said today that the government’s plan to postpone local council elections was a  clear attempt to discourage voters from voting in the referendum to stop spring hunting.

It asked if democracy was the price for appeasing hunters.

In a statement Birdlife urged the people to take part in the consultation process about the government's plans to put off council elections to 2019.  

Volunteers of the Coalition Against Spring Hunting hand in their call for a referendum.

“The government has argued that local council elections should be cancelled in 2015 and 2017 to both save money and address alleged voter fatigue, but a cost cannot be put on democracy and there is little evidence of voter fatigue since there is always a high voter turn out rate for local council elections," Birdlife said.

“An abrogative referendum on spring hunting will take place next year and this should encourage the government to hold the local council elections at the same time to save on logistical costs. The whole aim of postponing the local council elections next year is therefore a clear attempt to discourage voters to get out and vote.” Birdlife said.

BirdLife Malta spokesman Mark Sultana, said: “Cancelling local council elections until 2019 is an attempt to derail established democratic processes and few commentators have been convinced by the arguments that have been put forward for such a change. 

BirdLife Malta has therefore concluded that the only reason why the government is proposing to cancel local council elections for such a long time is to separate these elections from the proposed abrogative referendum about spring hunting and discourage voters from taking the bold step of voting in a referendum.  Every government should encourage voter turnout, not discourage it.”

Birdlife noted that just before the FKNK handed in its petition for the Referenda Act to be changed to prevent a referendum to abolish spring hunting from taking place, FKNK President Joseph Perici Calascione explicitly called for the referendum to be stand alone.

 “It is absolutely clear that the FKNK have come to the conclusion that separating local council elections from the referendum will result in a lower turn out of voters, possibly making the referendum result invalid if not enough people turn out to vote,” Mr Sultana said.

Birdlife said the coalition of NGOs calling for a referendum remained confident that enough people would be motivated to vote in favour of the abolition of spring hunting when the referendum took place.

People wishing to take part in the consultation can write to elezzjonijietlokali.mjcl@gov.mt