There has been a significant growth in e-democracy, and the idea is slowly being introduced in Malta on the www.firstmalta.com website.
Direct democracy is a democratic system, through which people show their support to policy initiatives directly, and legislators or even private organisations implement such policies based on the support garnered among the population.
Topics on FirstMalta.com include petitions asking the Maltese Church to donate its riches to the poor and to use its finances to set up structures to help the less fortunate.
Another topic is a petition asking legislators to increase punishments to anyone caught abusing animals and to use proceeds from fines to set up government-owned shelters to help protect innocent animals.
In future, the most successful electronically signed petitions will be sent to politicians or organisations so they can take decisions based on the public’s suggestions .
“We have just acquired the domain name Firstmalta.com and believe that it will definitely help make a change for the better in the standard of living among Maltese people. This is the first step towards becoming a direct democracy.
“Wherever participative democracy was introduced, the country developed economically and socially,” a Firstmalta.com co-founder said.
Maltese citizens can suggest petitions themselves and if these are deemed interesting, they will be included on the electronic voting platform.