Gozo proposed as region as population exceeds threshold

Extending the right to vote to all Maltese citizens living in EU countries and establishing greater proportionality in Malta's electoral system are among the topics for discussion as the three political parties plan long overdue changes to the electoral law.

Nationalist Party general secretary Joe Saliba believes that with some goodwill a solution can be found to suit all parties.

Confirming that a meeting has been scheduled for next week to set out an agenda, Labour Party general secretary Jason Micallef accused the PN of trying to deviate the public's attention from the thrashing it received at the local elections last weekend.

The three parties have been at loggerheads over the electoral laws for several years. The issue had come to a head in a freak 1981 general election when the PN could not govern under law because it failed to obtain the majority of seats in Parliament despite winning an absolute majority of the popular vote.

The issue was resolved just before the 1987 election when a constitutional amendment was agreed to ensuring that the party obtaining an absolute majority of votes would be entitled to an absolute majority of parliamentary seats.

Prior to the 1996 election another constitutional amendment was agreed to, guaranteeing an absolute majority of seats for the party receiving a relative majority of votes in the event of only two parties being represented in Parliament.

However, the size of a party's parliamentary majority may not always truly reflect its popular mandate. Labour leader Alfred Sant has always claimed that his party's one-seat parliamentary majority in 1996 was not truly proportional considering the MLP's overall majority of 7,600 votes.

The strength of the parties in Parliament is still decided on the basis of returns from the electoral districts, whose boundaries are a constant source of friction between the parties.

Mr Saliba said his party was willing to work to adopt a law which defended the voters first and foremost rather than the parties.

He agreed on the need to create a just system of proportionality, saying that the single transferable vote system could be up for revision.

One of the points to be discussed is the question of district size. The electoral law says that no district should contain plus or minus five per cent of the average number of eligible voters in all districts. But, as things stand, six districts - the first, fifth, sixth, ninth, 12th, and 13th - exceed this threshold.

If the electoral law remains unchanged, or unless the necessary arrangements are made to take 13th district - Gozo - into consideration as a region rather than a district, as Mr Saliba suggested, then the island would have to be split up. The districts cannot be changed by the parties but by the Electoral Commission.

On another issue, Mr Saliba said it was high time for the parties to permit all Maltese persons living in the EU to have a right to vote in the future. The existing law states that a person must have resided in Malta for six months out of the previous 18 months to be eligible to vote. This was a major point of contention during last year's European elections.

"We think it is highly unfair that persons who are working in the EU, which we now form part of, are robbed of their vote. As things stand, EU Commissioner Joe Borg and our five MEPs will probably have no right to vote come the next election. Wouldn't that be bizarre?" Mr Saliba asked.

Mr Micallef would not be drawn into saying what his party's demands were but pointed out that the MLP was not prepared to go to the election and risk a repetition of 1996. Only an element of goodwill will lead to an agreement on the electoral laws, he said.

Especially after winning more local councils last weekend, the MLP was also objecting to the "disproportionate" composition of the Association of Local Councils, Mr Micallef said. The PN has four representatives on the association to the MLP's two.

"These things are not negotiable. They're anti-democratic," he protested.

Mr Micallef criticised Mr Saliba for speaking out in public about the electoral system, a strategy he described as an "amateur way" of trying to make people forget the election result.

Alternattiva Demokratika's general secretary Stephen Cachia underlined the importance that the electoral system take into consideration the minorities. "We need to ensure that the system gives a voice to everybody and that proportionality is taken into consideration," Mr Cachia said.

One also needed to ensure that no Electoral Commission has a right to change districts to suit the party in power, he added.