The government’s attempt to cancel an election is a clear sign that the Prime Minister is meddling with democracy, according to Opposition leader Simon Busuttil.

Last Saturday, Dr Busuttil drew comparisons between the government’s plan to postpone local council elections and the democracy protests in Hong Kong.

“In China we have a government that wants to influence an election in Hong Kong. In Malta, we have a government that wants to cancel it. There is an issue of democracy at stake,” Dr Busuttil told Times of Malta.

The government announced last July that all local council elections would be postponed to coincide with the 2019 European Parliament elections. Prime Minister Joseph Muscat had said the move would save costs, improve turnout and address fatigue.

Dr Busuttil said the move would amount to a cancellation of elections, not a postponement. “This is the cancellation of the 2015 election. You do not postpone an election from 2015 to 2019, because another election is due in 2019,” he said.

He said the Nationalist Party still had no clue what Dr Muscat was referring to when he said he would announce some form of compromise on when the elections will be held.

“When he talks about ‘a compromise’ it sounds like a compromise between them and us. There was only one discussion, and that wasn’t consultation. Whenever we touched the electoral system in government we only did it if there was consensus,” Dr Busuttil said.