The electoral alliance between the Nationalist Party and the Democratic Party is by far the most important innovation of this election. So far, the small parties have all tried to get themselves elected to Parliament under their own steam. In so doing, they systematically ignored the political effect of the so-called corrective mechanism introduced in the Constitution just before the 1987 election.

This was intended to avoid the repetition of the perverse electoral result of 1981 in which the PN won the absolute majority of the first preference votes while Labour got the majority of the seats in the House of Representatives.

To ensure the fundamental democratic principle of majority rule, the Constitution provides for the addition of seats in the House so that the party winning the majority of votes will always have the absolute majority of MPs.

This meant that the voters know that the result is determined by giving first preferences to one of the only two parties that have the chance of winning the majority of votes and seats in Parliament. Therefore, any number one preference vote to a small party risked being irrelevant in the all-important race between the two parties to win the majority of first preferences.

This remains the case with Alternattiva Demokratika, which has, again, decided to contest this year’s elections alone with a separate electoral list from that of the two major parties.

The Democratic Party, on the other hand, has broken the mould and taken the plunge to contest the election as part of the PN electoral list. So, if a voter decides to give Marlene Farrugia or Godfrey Farrugia or any other PD candidate the No. 1 preference, this means the national aggregate of the PN will increase by another vote to contrast the first preferences of Labour candidates.

Labour is contesting the election on its own, so the ordinary logic of party voting applies.

The PD decision leaves AD in the cold because, since the 1987 election, the electorate has systematically decided not to risk wasting a vote in the race of first preferences.

Since the 1987 election, the electorate has systematically decided not to risk wasting a vote in the race of first preferences

Of course, it is up to PN/PD voters to decide how to give preferences to any individual in the PN list because, as long as a first preference vote is given to a candidate appearing on the list, the voter can then go on to give the candidates in the list any preference one wishes.

For example, a voter can give the first preference to a Nationalist candidate, a second preference to a PD candidate, the third preference to a PN candidate and so on, provided candidates on the PN list are all given a preference.

The same applies if the first preference is given to a PD candidate.

This, however, would not be the case if one gives an AD candidate the first preference because AD does not form part of any list but its own.

From a constitutional perspective, even though it is the first preference only which counts to ensure the coalition a national majority of votes and seats, from a district aspect it remains important to vote to all the coalition candidates on the party list.

This is important to elect the 65 MPs, five from each district, by the proportional representation system.

So, even PN/PD voters have to be careful to fill all the boxes in the PN list. Selecting the two PD candidates in a district without giving a preference to the PN candidates would give a huge electoral advantage to the Labour candidates of that district.

At the last election, two districts were won by Labour due to a counting error when a packet of 50 votes in the 13th district and one of 100 in the eighth district were shifted incorrectly.

In districts with a close result, it is important for party voters to give a preference to all candidates in the party list and not just to a few.

This will be particularly important to the PN/Oranġjo list. All this means that, finally, we may be getting there in working out electoral permutations that allow for a multi-party House of Representatives, which, at the same time, is within the logic of the extra seats resulting from the corrective mechanism if/when this kicks in.

In all the elections after Independence, voters have been very scared to waste votes in the two-party struggle for parliamentary supremacy.

The only third party candidates in Parliament were those elected within one of the big parties but either refused the party whip and sat in the House as independents or voted against their party in the course of a legislature.

Inevitably, in both such cases they either did not contest the subsequent election or did so with a small party, without being elected.

Wenzu Mintoff was expelled from Labour’s parliamentary group in the 1987-1992 legislature; he remained an MP in the interests of AD but was not elected in the 1992 election.

Dom Mintoff voted out the Sant government and did not contest again.

Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando left the PN parliamentary group in the 2008-2013 legislature and did not contest the 2013 election. Franco Debono voted against his own party in 2013 but did not contest the following election. Will Marlene Farrugia and Godfrey Farrugia be the exception?

Austin Bencini is a constitutional lawyer.

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