It is utterly perplexing that Giovanni Bonello, a leading light for many local literati, be these of the liberal (those who want to change things, so that things remain fundamentally as they are) or conservative (those who believe our little pebble is the best of all possible places even in relation to the superficial trimmings) kind, gets its wrong even when it comes to basic definitions.

In his article ‘Misunderstanding the Constitution – 7: A perverse election result – was it constitutional?’ (The Sunday Times of Malta, February 25) Judge Bonello claims that “democracy means that the will of the majority must prevail”. This statement is semantically fallacious and confusing since it mistakes means with goal. Democracy does not mean ‘majority rule’. The Greek word ‘dimokratía’ means the people (whatever that term indicates, a very contentious issue) exercising power, not majority rule. The latter would be ‘archĩ tis pliopsifias’ not ‘dimokratía’.  If ‘majority’ were synonymous with ‘people’, John who votes AD would not be part of ‘the people’, when in fact he obviously is.

Majority rule is considered by some thinkers and political philosophers (not everyone though) as the best means to approximate this goal and ideal (i.e. the ideal of ‘the people’ – whatever that means – exercising power) not the goal itself. Indeed, apart from the very substantial dispute as to whether the people can really exercise their power in a system where others claim to represent them (the concepts of representation and delegation are also highly problematic), even assuming democracy should be representative, it is not obvious that the best means through which the people exercise power in representative democracy is through elections where ‘the majority of voters’ (not majority simpliciter as Bonello claims) decide who should rule.

I, for myself, do think that given current circumstances in most contexts, majority rule should apply. Yet this is not obvious and non-contentious. Some contemporary philosophers like Ben Saunders hold that there could be other means like lotteries (a ballot paper is extracted and government is elected according to the ballot paper) which determine how the people exercise their rule in a representative set up. As stated, I personally do not agree with such a proposal. Yet I am referring to this possibility to indicate that Judge Bonello’s simplistic and incorrect platitude, wherein democracy is equated with majority rule, is not as obvious as he seems to assume, something that you wouldn’t expect from someone who in Malta has such a standing.

In this letter I only wanted to dwell on this intellectual negligence and not discuss the historical claims (some true, some highly dubious) Judge Bonello makes. I cannot, however, not point out something else which he grossly misconstrues. If the democracy ‘obviously’ means ‘majority rule’ and the only reason why the Nationalist Party did not legally contest the results in 1981 (which originally the party accepted, see the first editorial in In Tagħna after the 1981 results were announced) was that (despicably, I agree) the Constitutional Court had been suspended by the Labour Party, then the question arises as to why there were cases in other (much older and more established) democracies where similar instances occurred, but where parties and/or candidates that won the popular vote but lost the election did not seek legal means to overturn the electoral results?

Why did Al Gore and Hillary Clinton not appeal to the Supreme Court when they won the popular vote but lost the election? The answer is simple, because the US Constitution stipulates that who wins a majority of the Electoral College votes wins the presidency. Just as Malta’s Constitution, before it was amended to ensure majority rule, stipulated that it is the party which wins the most seats which should govern.