Joseph Muscat’s incursion into the spring hunting referendum campaign two weeks before the vote was deemed indecent by No campaigners.

After having initially declared his stand in favour of spring hunting, the Prime Minister had promised not to campaign for a Yes vote.

He reneged on that commitment and broke his silence while on the local council election campaign trail in Qala when polls were predicting a seven-point lead for the No camp.

Vote packets at the counting hall. Photo: Darrin Zammit Lupi

Dr Muscat has received flak for influencing the referendum result in favour of the Yes camp. Labour sympathisers were blamed for conducting a whispering campaign for the Yes camp in the last week and in at least one party club, posters were also put up urging people to vote in favour of retaining spring hunting.

The Labour Party has denied any concerted and organised effort to lobby for the Yes vote but party sources conceded the probability this was a result of many hunters being also Labour voters.

How did this pressure impact the vote in the end?

Labour sympathisers were blamed for conducting a whispering campaign for the Yes camp in the last week and in at least one party club, posters were also put up urging people to vote in favour of retaining spring hunting

On Saturday, the Yes camp captured 126,434 votes, which is 41,000 fewer votes than the Labour Party total in the 2013 general election.

If all those in the Yes camp were Labourites – not likely since there were Nationalists who voted for spring hunting – Dr Muscat might not have been as successful in mobilising the Labour vote. The disparity between Labour’s general election vote and the Yes result is more significant when the figures are analysed by district.

In the Cottonera district (second), a Labour hotbed, the Yes won by 10,511 votes, nearly 6,000 votes fewer than what the PL scored in the general election. Turnout in the referendum for this district was among the lowest at 69 per cent.

A greater disparity occurred in the Marsascala district (third), another Labour stronghold, where turnout stood at 68 per cent.

While the Labour Party scored just over 16,000 votes in the third district in the general election, the Yes campaign mustered 9,938 votes. The Valletta (first) and Paola (fourth) districts tell similar stories.

Not the same can be said though for the No vote in the second, third, fourth and fifth districts.

If all those in the No camp were Nationalists – not likely since there were Labourites who voted against spring hunting – it would mean all PN voters in these districts voted No.

It would also mean that several hundred Labourites also voted against spring hunting because the support for the No camp in these districts surpassed the PN’s general election vote. A similar situation occurred in the Mosta district (11th).

Gozo was the only district where the Yes vote in the referendum surpassed the amount of votes Labour obtained in the general election.

The pro-spring hunting lobby garnered almost 1,900 more votes in Gozo than Labour’s general election result, which suggests that PN voters also flocked to the Yes camp in their droves. Sources also insisted the Yes camp had a grassroots network that was bringing out the vote on Saturday, something which was reflected in the high turnouts in the pro-hunting districts.

The effectiveness of Dr Muscat’s pro-spring hunting statements in swinging the referendum vote towards the Yes camp may never be known with certainty, it seems.

kurt.sansone@timesofmalta.com