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 who stressed the comparison with Hong Kong was justified.
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 plans in July to postpone all local council elections to coincide with the polls for the European Parliament in 2009.
Prime Minister Joseph Muscat had said the move would save money, 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 also accused the government of trying to undermine a referendum on spring hunting.
“It’s all about undermining democracy. Democracy is one principle: either you are in favour of it and want to strengthen it or you are not.”
He pointed out the cancellation of local council elections did not feature in the Labour Party’s electoral programme and no proper consultation had taken place.
The Nationalist Party still had no clue on what Dr Muscat was referring to when he said he would announce some form of compromise on when the elections would 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.
He said that the decision to move the mandate of holding local councils from three to four years took two years of consultation under a PN government and, eventually, it was agreed unanimously, even by the Labour leader in Opposition.