Labour’s statute is not in line with the law on party financing so the PL cannot be registered with the Electoral Commission, which regulates party finances under the law, The Sunday Times of Malta can reveal.
This has created an embarrassing situation for the PL, given that it was this government that finally pushed through the Financing of Political Parties Act after it had been many years in the making, describing it as historic.
The party will now have to make the necessary amendments to the statute during a general con-ference, after the commission informed PL top brass of the situation. It is not known which clauses are out of line.
A spokesman for the Electoral Commission said: “After our own due diligence on the statutes of the political parties which have submitted their applications to register, we found that the Labour Party’s statute is not in line with the law.
“Labour have recognised this problem and have now informed us that they will shortly make the necessary amendments to their statute during a general conference in the coming weeks.”
Asked whether this problem means that the commission will slow down the process with regard to the other parties’ applications, the spokesman said this would not be the case.
“Each application will be treated on its own merits, and we are not going to wait for Labour to put its house in order. Except for Labour, all other applications seem to be in order and should be approved by the end of the year,” the spokesman said.
Asked about the situation, a Labour spokesman said the commission had not communicated “any decision” to the party so far.
The Electoral Commission has received applications from the Labour and Nationalist parties, as well as Alternattiva Demokratika, Partit Demokratiku and Moviment Patrijotti Maltin.
Last Thursday, it announced that the Moviment Patrijotti Maltin was the first party to be registered officially.
The unexpected development appears to have derailed Labour’s plans to outdo its political rivals, particularly the Nationalist Party, and become the first Maltese political party to be officially recognised under the new law.
“Since it was the Labour government which finally pushed the law in Parliament after years of discussion, Labour strategists were very keen to make sure their party was to be recognised first by the commission,” sources within the commission said.
“However, following the oversight on the statute, this has now become impossible.”
Last June, on the occasion of Labour’s presentation of its application to the Electoral Commission, Justice Minster Owen Bonnici had a dig at the PN, boasting in a tweet about Labour writing history by becoming the first party to register.
Instead, Moviment Patrijotti Maltin got there before it and Labour may well be the last to enter the commission’s register.
The law, introduced last January, is intended to make political parties more responsible and transparent. It lays down a €25,000 per year limit on donations to political parties by the same person and makes a number of other distinctions between donations that are permissible and those that are not.
The expenses of each party have to be verified by a qualified auditor and published on the commission’s website.
ivan.camilleri@timesofmalta.com