Electoral boundary shake-up will hit candidates, not parties, experts say

Malta’s newly proposed electoral boundaries will impact individual candidates but are unlikely to have a significant effect on Malta’s elections, according to electoral experts who spoke to Times of Malta.

On Tuesday, the government and opposition members each presented separate reports on how electoral boundaries should be redrawn.

These revisions take place from time to time as towns grow or shrink in size, with Malta’s constitution saying that the population of districts cannot vary by more than 5%, with the exception of Gozo, which remains a separate district.

Electoral districts were last changed in February 2021 but are now up for revision again.

The government’s report suggests splitting several towns, including Birkirkara, Pietà and Naxxar, across different districts, while rejoining other towns that were previously split, such as Żebbuġ and Luqa.

The report adopts a different approach, keeping all towns intact, except for Swieqi, where Madliena will be hived off. But it will also move several towns to different districts to where they are now.

Malta’s two main political parties bickered over the proposals throughout yesterday.

In a statement, PN said that towns should not be divided unless absolutely necessary, with several PN MPs arguing that the proposals make little sense. 

The PN said the government proposal would dilute residents' voices by splitting many localities across electoral boundaries. 

Later in the day, PL said that it agreed with the Electoral Commission’s proposals, saying that the proposals are “in accordance with the provisions of the constitution,” namely the element of “geographical proximity” and the variation in population density compared to each district’s quota.

It also accused the PN of turning the issue into a partisan one, saying that four years ago it had voted in favour of changes based on the same principles, against the minority report.

But how the changes will impact Malta’s upcoming elections remains to be seen.

Gerrymandering? Unlikely – experts

Former PN MP Herman Schiavone, whose doctorate focused on Malta’s electoral system, believes that neither of the proposed systems will drastically alter Malta’s electoral landscape, although individual candidates will have to rethink their plans.

“For candidates, minimal changes are better,” Schiavone said. Candidates who have spent months campaigning in their district and carrying out house visits may have the rug pulled from under their feet if their district has changed radically, he argued.

“But when it comes to the political parties and Malta’s broader governance system, little changes,” Schiavone said. “The government is elected through a majority of votes, so seats in a district don’t really come into play.”

The exception, Schiavone says, is if a third party were to be elected but, with the election two years away, he argues there is little to indicate that this is likely.

“Ultimately, there is no gerrymandering as long as two parties are elected,” Schiavone said. “We can say that perhaps PN might gain a little in one district and PL in another, as things stand, but this could change as voting trends evolve.”

Louis Gatt, a longstanding member of PL’s electoral office, agrees.

“Candidates will obviously be affected, but there won’t be much effect on the parties,” he argues.

Gatt and Schiavone both argue that while the opposition’s minority report keeps whole towns intact, it introduces more drastic changes to the current districts.

“The main proposal will move just under 21,000 voters to a new district,” Gatt says. “The minority proposal, on the other hand, will move 186,000 voters, roughly half the electorate, to a new district.”

Meanwhile, former PN MP and general secretary Clyde Puli takes a balanced view.

“Parties will only be affected if none of them achieve an absolute majority of votes,” he said.

But there may be cases in which constituents may be affected, he argues, for example if an MP who has underperformed suddenly disappears from the district. “It could mean that there’s no accountability in that case,” he says.

Ultimately, Puli says, “both reports look at things from their perspective and both have their problems,” citing the division of towns across multiple districts (“this is never a good thing”) as one of his main bones of contention.

Malta needs to ‘think outside the box’: Puli

But Puli has some sympathy for both proposals. He argues that Malta’s electoral system is “slave to a mathematical formula,” so both reports are just trying to make the numbers add up.

“It’s difficult to solve the problem without thinking outside the box,” he argues, calling for wider electoral reform.

Puli says that this could involve having districts of different sizes, each electing a different number of MPs over the years as their populations grow or shrink.

“We already do this for local council elections, so why not for general elections too?” Puli asked.

And Puli says that a wider reform could bring about a raft of other changes, such as slashing Malta’s 13 electoral districts down to as few as seven.

“What really matters is that reforms are done to the benefit of citizens, not parties or candidates,” Puli says.