Editorial

The result of the March 8 referendum is loud and clear: a comfortable majority of those who cast valid votes - 143,094, or 53.6 per cent - voted Yes to Malta's membership of the European Union at its next enlargement on May 1, 2004. Those who said No amounted to 123,628, or 46.4 per cent - an indisputably clear-cut margin of 19,466 votes. No more and no less.

Given the island's notorious 50-50 political division and considering the 91 per cent turnout - the highest of any national referendum held in Malta and just three or four percentage points below the average of recent general elections - the result's legitimacy is unassailable. This has been recognised by all foreign governments, by the European Commission, by the international press, by whoever accepts the rules of the democratic game.

But not by the Opposition Leader, Alfred Sant, the same Alfred Sant who, fresh from a drubbing, by almost 13,000 votes, at the hands of the Nationalist Party at the last general election in 1998, pronounced the new government about to be formed by Dr Fenech Adami "illegitimate" and proceeded to inform foreign embassies of its "illegitimacy".

Dr Sant is a bad loser. He proved this again last Sunday.

It was obvious that only very few had heeded his advice to spoil their ballot papers (in the event there were 3,928 who did so, or a quite normal 1.45 per cent, considering that in the local council elections held simultaneously, and involving some 105,000 voters, there were 5,208 invalid votes, or about 5 per cent, when there was no directive to spoil ballot papers!).

Only slightly more - and Dr Sant proudly proved he was among them - obeyed another alternative directive issued by the Labour Party, namely not to vote, considering that: 4,207 had not collected their voting document in time (including a few hundred who died since the publication of the last electoral register in October); quite a few who died after the voting documents were distributed; many could not vote because they were hospitalised and could not be moved; others were abroad and did not arrive in time, and others who were abroad and who arrived, fully intending to vote, only to be dissuaded after the Labour Party warned them they would be voting "illegally". Of course the majority of those who abstained (8.9 per cent of the total on the register) did so either because of indifference or because they were genuinely undecided on EU membership.

Faced with a bewildering range of three options - never resorted to by the same political party in the history of referenda in Malta - it is no wonder that virtually all Labour supporters and those who oppose membership preferred to take the third and most logical one, by voting No.

Yet, as was quite evident and as we predicted editorially on February 23, Dr Sant proceeded to lump together all those who voted No, those who cast invalid votes and those who did not turn up to vote (even if they patently could not do so, lying six feet under) and, hey presto, promptly pronounced that the Yes vote had obtained "only" 48 per cent. The rest, 52 per cent, had "voted for partnership" and therefore "Partnership had won"! Suddenly, the referendum was no longer fazull (fake) and its result to be ignored - it was a victory for the inexistent 'partnership'! Surely a unique interpretation which finds no echo anywhere in the world.

On February 23 we had also pointed out that "at least MLP deputy leader George Vella seems prepared to accept a Yes result if, after removing the four or five per cent who normally do not vote in a general election, the ayes will have a majority of the (total) electorate". But Dr Vella, the veteran of six general elections, suddenly discovered, when pressed, that he is "no mathematician" and that the figure (of those who normally do not vote) should - conveniently - be three per cent, which would mean that the Yes vote would go just below the fateful 50 per cent plus one threshold!

The priority facing the nation now is to ensure that its will, so clearly expressed in the March 8 referendum, is carried out. The people have decided that Malta's future lies inside the European Union, thus ensuring not only security and peace of mind, but also stability, prosperity and economic growth - in short, a certain future, the key to foreign investment and confidence in its economic potential.

That decision now has to be implemented and endorsed in the election which the Prime Minister has called for April 12. The consensus which has coalesced around the Yes to Europe movement must be maintained, and all forces roped in to ensure a decisive victory at the polls.