Had Saturday’s referendum only been held in Malta, the No vote would have won by 3,300 votes with a marked north-south divide. The No camp managed to secure victory in the northern urban areas, in the districts that are traditionally Nationalist leaning.
The margins of victory in the Sliema district (10th) and the Msida district (9th) were significantly higher for the No camp than the margins of victory registered by the Yes camp anywhere else.
In the 10th district the No vote topped 70 per cent, while in the 9th it reached 65 per cent. But the margin of victory in these districts was partially neutralised by a low turnout.
In fact 70 per cent in the Sliema area translated into 12,224 votes for the Yes camp while 59.8 per cent for the No camp in the fifth district translated into 12,874 votes.
While the turnout in the 10th district stood at 70 per cent, the turnout in the fifth, which comprises the airport villages, Marsaxlokk and Birżebbuġa, hit 81 per cent.
The figures broken down by districts clearly show that in the pro-hunting areas, which are traditionally Labour leaning, voter mobilisation was higher.
This could reflect the significantly better grassroots campaign conducted by the Yes camp, which also included the contribution of various interest groups such as festa enthusiasts, who are embedded in community life.
But the Yes camp also saw its efforts boosted in the last week by a whispering campaign of Labour Party functionaries to get out the vote in support of the hunting lobby.
The biggest margin of victory for the Yes camp was in the Żebbuġ district (7th), where 62.4 per cent of voters were in favour of spring hunting.
This percentage in a district that registered a turnout of 80 per cent translated into 13,239 votes. With Malta’s districts evenly split between the two sides – each obtained a majority in six districts – Gozo was always going to be crucial for the Yes vote. It was also a district the No campaign failed to target concertedly, probably realising the pro-hunting bias there was very strong.
Gozo not only registered the highest turnout at 85 per cent, it also gave the Yes camp the highest number of votes in any district, with 14,179 marking the yellow box. These votes were equivalent to 62.1 per cent of the Gozitan electorate.
But Gozo may have another story to tell since it was the only traditionally PN-leaning district to align itself with the party leader’s pro-spring hunting position. The other PN-leaning districts delivered a No vote.
The referendum result makes it easy to analyse the numbers along political party lines but this may not tell the whole story.
In fact political party insiders were reluctant to commit to victory for either side yesterday at the counting hall as the first samples started to be sorted.
While the Yes was ahead, the margin of victory was too close to call and the parties’ number crunchers were cautious about projecting the result along traditional methods used during general elections.
A Labour Party source said the way people perceived the issue was very locality-specific even if districts exhibited general trends. It was only several samples and an hour after the vote sorting exercise started that party agents became certain of a Yes victory.
With just 2,220 votes separating both camps, the result is the closest any referendum has come.
It is also marginally higher than the difference between the two major political parties in the 2008 election when the PN edged Labour by just 1,800 votes.
Result
Yes: 126,434 votes (50.4%)
No: 124,214 votes (49.6%)
Difference: 2,220 votes