A few years ago when I was at school in England, the UK general election was taking place. My economics teacher kept stressing to us the importance of exercising our right to vote. It was the first time I’d heard anyone talk about the importance of voting. Most people tend to take the view that “my vote won’t make a difference in the outcome”.

This is a fallacy, as it is predicated on everyone else acting in a different manner to you. Your vote will only not make a difference so long as everyone else votes responsibly. If only 10 per cent of people choose to adopt this false train of thought, then already we are likely to see a misrepresentative outcome. Thus, every vote counts.

The main point made in favour of voting, however, was because it is a right, a privilege, one afforded to us by our forefathers who died in the name of democracy. We are all very quick to forget this, especially the younger generations. Democracy is not something we should take for granted. Even today, there are many countries who suffer under harsh dictatorships and pseudo democracies.

Many people believe this to be too patrio­tic an argument – an idyllic one maybe, but one which in practice won’t hold. But we are all too happy to buy a poppy and pay our respects to those who died for us during the First World War on Remembrance Day. So why not respect those who died fighting for democracy by honouring them with a vote? (My guess is because it’s seen as normal to appear patriotic on Remembrance Day, but rather taboo for democracy). I really must stress here, I am not some huge patriot myself, I just believe this to be a reasonable argument.

Turning up just to spoil your vote might seem like it’s pointless, but it’s not. If you don’t turn up to vote it sends no message, it’s ambiguous – it could have been for one of a thousand reasons. But turning up even just to spoil your vote shows that you appreciate your right to vote, and it also shows categorically that you are not at all happy with any of the political parties. It is a clear statement.

These are arguments I would make in favour of voting for your average, once-every-five-years election. However, this year is different. This year is an exception. It’s an exception because our institutions have been hijacked. The very pillars that democracy was built on to safeguard itself and its citizens have been hijacked.

This is not an election between Red or Blue. This is an election between democracy and a sleazy dictatorship

And here’s the best part – they’ve been hijacked by our very own Prime Minister! Here, I stress that this has nothing to do with political parties. The Prime Minister is as much a Labour voter’s prime minister as he is a Nationalist voter’s prime minister. This should aggrieve everyone, irrespective of their political beliefs.

And so we are in a situation where we really are not living in a democracy. The police force are not functioning independently but rather only act on the Prime Minister’s orders, the Attorney General is refusing to get involved, and the Prime Minister himself created a situation where there was a blatant conflict of interest, and yet chose to ignore it!

The moment he launched a magisterial inquiry into himself, he had to step down. It’s simple. The boss ordered an inquiry into himself, and appointed an employee to carry out the inquiry. It doesn’t get any more clear-cut than that. The fact that this was allowed to happen is beyond me. It’s absolutely crazy and clearly would never happen in a functioning democracy.

Again, I stress that this has nothing to do with political parties. This is about the situation Malta finds itself in, irrespective of whether the government is Red or Blue.

It’s a situation that cannot go on. We cannot allow this to continue. Poor governance in a proper democracy can be accepted as an error of judgement by the electorate, and as incompetence by those in power. No doubt the people in power would pay the price through public denouncement and criticism, but it can be accepted as a mistake, a few bad years.

This, however, cannot be accepted. It is not poor governance. It is blatant abuse of power to the point where we are effectively living in a dictatorship.

And so ultimately, we find ourselves in a very peculiar situation. For this is not an election between Red or Blue (a problem in itself as Maltese politics is essentially a form of tribalism – but that’s for another time). This is an election between democracy and a sleazy dictatorship.

I am sure that extremists on either side can’t even be partially swayed either way. And enough has been written about the ongoing issues themselves. So this is a message, or a plea rather, to those who plan on not voting, and to those who are currently sitting on the fence; to the significant percentage of you who have been disillusioned by politics in Malta, rightly so, and who are tired of having to choose between the lesser of two evils. Please do exercise your vote this time round. Don’t vote for a colour or a party. That should be incidental. Vote for democracy.

Sebastian Pace spent five years as a scholarship student at Millfield College, a leading English public school, and is now reading for a degree in economics at the University of Southampton.

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