The No lobby will be shifting its focus onto minorities worried their interests might be at risk if the country votes to abolish spring hunting in the April referendum.
“The campaign is not yet as effective as we wanted it to be... We’ll be targeting groups like pigeon-racing and firework enthusiasts and address their concerns and any questions they might have with the facts,” Mark Sultana, spokesman of Spring Hunting Out (Shout) campaign, said yesterday.
MaltaToday yesterday published a survey showing that support for the No camp is marginally down, although it is still in the lead, at 37.1 per cent of voters in February from 38.6 per cent in January.
The Yes vote dropped from 40 to 30.3 per cent while the number of undecided voters grew by eight points, possibly a reflection of the pro-hunting campaign’s late entry to the campaign, which was launched only last Saturday.
The hunting lobby holds that abolishing spring hunting might result in other minorities getting the chop, an argument shot down by Judge Giovanni Bonello earlier this year.
Mr Sultana said the No campaign will now boost its presence among the public and participate more in debates.
The Shout campaign yesterday called on the other side to start debating the “real issues” of the hunting referendum.
Yes campaign does not have any strong and truthful arguments
He was reacting to remarks by hunters’ federation president Joe Perici Calascione, that the spring hunting referendum was a “war and not just a battle”.
War meant intimidation, Mr Sultana noted, and an abrogative referendum was not a war but a democratic tool that Maltese citizens had a right to use.
The Yes campaign, he said, was a mask behind which the real hunters were hiding. The hunting lobby’s slogan Iva Bħala Maltin u Ewropej (yes as Maltese and Europeans) was a marketing exercise which tried to give a different impression of the real people the campaign was representing.
Addressing a news conference during a jamming session at Buġibba Square by the NGO Why Not, aimed at raising awareness of the No campaign, Mr Sultana said people had not forgotten the hunting lobby’s bullying tactics, their recent protest during which they assaulted a journalist and a group of birdwatchers in Buskett.
“This is the reality of spring hunting in Malta. It’s a face that they are now afraid to show to the people because they know it will not win them any votes in the referendum.”
Mr Sultana called on the Yes campaign to start debating the real issues of the spring hunting referendum. People with arguments held debates, not war.
“Joe Perici Calascione wants to start a war because the Yes campaign does not have any strong and truthful arguments to defend spring hunting,” he said.