The Electoral Commission is appointed by the Nationalist and Labour parties. This is Malta’s version of an “independent” commission which is supposed to oversee the voting process. The latest manoeuvre leaving 2,800 young adults without any voting rights for this May’s referendum just confirms the fact that the Commission really and truly protects the interests of the party that happens to be in government.

This is not the first time fiddling with the electoral process has taken place. The playing around with district boundaries, the mass exodus of the seriously ill and dying from hospitals and old peoples’ homes on voting day and the lack of enforcement of candidate spending rules are some examples of the shameful practices in this so-called European country.

In other countries all those who reach voting age, even on election day itself, are allowed to vote; they only have collect a voting document from their local council, police station or electoral office.

But in Malta the PL and the PN are too busy trying to gain advantage by manipulation and administrative tricks to worry about widening participation in the democratic process as much as possible. Zero-sum politics at its best.

The 2,800 young people who will not vote and all those who reach voting age but do not make it to the electoral list in time before each and every election have the PN and the PL to thank for this state of affairs.