Next year’s local council elections will be held together with the spring hunting referendum, once the court gives its go-ahead, after the government backed down from its plan to postpone all local elections.
Announcing the government’s decision following a month-long consultation process, Justice Minister Owen Bonnici said the 2015 elections would be held while those due in 2017 would be postponed to 2019.
Following last May’s European Parliament election, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat had floated the idea that all local council elections be postponed to 2019 to address what he termed as voting fatigue and to keep election expenses down.
However, the idea was immediately shot down by the Nationalist Party which argued such democratic issues should be agreed upon with the Opposition.
Some had also argued that the government’s suggestion was a political tactic designed to hold the hunting referendum as a standalone poll, which would help the hunting lobby to defeat the referendum. Eventually, Dr Muscat last week announced that a compromise solution would be found.
Announcing the decision yesterday, Dr Bonnici said that, while the government respected the Opposition, its consultations had shown broad consensus for the council election legislature to be increased to five years, from the current four, and that all local council elections be held with the MEP elections.
Dr Bonnici said that following consultations – including with the PN, Alternattiva Demokratika, the Association of Local Councils and ambassadors of the Youth 16 vote – the government agreed the elections due in 2015 would be kept. Those due in 2017 will be postponed by two years so that from 2019 all local councillors will be elected together with MEPs once every five years.
On the abrogative spring hunting referendum, Dr Bonnici said if the court gave its green light, the government would announce a date in 2015 when both the referendum and the local elections would be held.
Legally, the 2015 elections are due in March but this date might be moved if the court upholds the referendum to give enough time to organise both.
The PN welcomed the government’s “U-turn” and expressed satisfaction that common sense had prevailed. However, it had reservations about holding the council elections every five years from 2019 and insisted there should be consensus about this.
AD welcomed the decision and said: “It goes to the government’s credit, in particular Dr Bonnici, to have listened to the voice of reason presented by AD and other bodies.”