Thousands of voting documents were still uncollected and the spring hunting out (Shout) campaign this afternoon encouraged people who had not yet collected theirs to do so and use it to overcome egoism.

Speaking during a family feast at the Chalet in Sliema, spokesman Mark Sultana said that although hundreds of voting documents had been collected, thousands of others were not. It was the Electoral Commission’s duty to encourage voters to collect their document, he said.

He said that a little less than 10 days of campaigning in favour of the countryside, the Maltese and Gozitans and birds remained and people should be encouraged to vote no.

Everyone was understanding that the referendum was a right and as was the case in the two previous referendums in Malta, the people’s voice was supreme. It was not true that voting no was a sign of intolerance and those who were saying so did not understand the concept of democracy, he said.

Mr Sultana stressed that the referendum was a right to show that one could not continue to be blackmailed by a small number of people who lacked arguments and called intolerant those who wanted spring hunting to come to an end.

For many years, the country listened not to the majority but to a minority who believed they could do whatever they wanted because they owned a shotgun, he said.