The government calls it an individual investment programme intended to attract to Malta people with talent and money to invest. The more down to earth deem it a sale of Maltese/European passports and information tabled in Parliament indicates that is just what the IIP actually is: a sale.

Over 80 per cent of the 143 successful applicants so far have signed five-year rent contracts rather than opting to buy a property in Malta. The implication is that they have no intention of settling here permanently, if at all. Chris Kalin, president of Henley & Partners, which runs the programme, was more succinct when he said that many of his clients were only interested in getting a Maltese passport rather than living here. In other words, they want a passport to Europe.

The IIP scheme, which had not been included in the Labour Party electoral programme, was controversial from the start and amended several times along the way until a settlement was reached with the European Union.

Now, a further issue has arisen: the new Maltese passport holders have a right to vote, under certain conditions established by the Constitution, and which include residing in Malta. At least 100 IIP applicants have ended up on the Electoral Register and the Nationalist Party is crying foul.

Party deputy leader Beppe Fenech Adami said “faceless” voters have mysteriously and abusively found themselves on the register when they did not have a right to vote. He said the new voters had actually declared they were not living here. The party, seeing this as “institutionalised corruption”, subsequently initiate court cases for the deletion of 91 IIP voters.

The Electoral Commission has accepted that almost half the PN’s complaints on voting rights were justified.

That political parties go to court to have names stricken off the Electoral Register is nothing new. The most controversial case was that of 2003 when the Labour Party attempted to take away Alternattiva Demokratika candidate Arnold Cassola’s voting right on basically the same lines – residence requirements.

Prof. Cassola filed a constitutional case and obtained a landmark judgment on the definition of ‘residence’. The court said that residence did not mean physical presence in the country and that a person abroad for study or work purposes may still be directly and continuously concerned with political activity in his country. Prof. Cassola won his case and not just voted but also stood for election.

Given that national election results can sometimes be wafer thin, it is understandable that political parties are vigilant and they should be. However, vigilance should not come at the cost of denying someone’s fundamental right to vote, even if one has bought the passport legally through a government scheme.

The issue is much wider than the mere six-month residence provision. It involves a fundamental right and, on principle, any Maltese passport holder should be able to exercise that right.

But the question arises: should all be given that right, even those who have been away from the islands for years and have barely any connection left? Or should Malta adopt a system, like that in Italy, where seats in the House of Representatives are reserved for citizens abroad?

There are political and legal reasons why the Nationalist Party went to the law courts on the IIP voters. But in doing so, they have also rekindled a debate on Maltese citizens abroad and their right to vote back home.