Hopes for restart of talks over electoral reform

Spokesmen for the three political parties yesterday expressed different levels of optimism over the chances of restarting talks on electoral reform, which stopped recently after only a few meetings.

A spokesman for the Malta Labour Party said he believed that the talks would resume shortly.

"I believe it is only a short break. The MLP is fully committed and disposed to meet at any time. We are willing to agree to a lot of changes. It seems that the Nationalist Party was upset with the report by the Electoral Commission and wants to vent its anger. Talks will resume at some point," the MLP spokesman said.

PN Secretary general Joe Saliba said talks had stopped because Alfred Sant had twice spoken about the national threshold and had already decided what this threshold should be.

"We cannot accept such agenda setting being done outside of the talks. It is unacceptable. We are prepared to meet and discuss, but if Alfred Sant continues to decide outside the talks it does not make sense to discuss anything. We did not break the secrecy we agreed on. Dr Sant broke it twice. We did not say anything when he spoke about this in a discussion at the university but when he repeated it on Xarabank, we decided that enough was enough," Mr Saliba said.

Mr Saliba would not be drawn into whether progress had been registered in the talks.

"We agreed not to reveal what goes on in the talks and I will not even say whether progress was registered or not. All I can say is that the Electoral Commission's report had nothing to do with the breakdown in talks," Mr Saliba said.

The commission recently proposed a redrawing of some electoral boundaries that met with the PN's immediate disapproval.

Asked whether he thought the parties could get round the table again, Mr Saliba said: "There is always light at the end of the tunnel. But one has to be cautious. We want a guarantee that discussions would lead us somewhere. We do not want to waste our time," Mr Saliba said.

Alternattiva's chairman Harry Vassallo felt that the issue was a storm in a teacup.

"We began the talks and I am sure that the people who stopped them will re-start them in the end.

"I cannot understand why talks were stopped half way through. Alfred Sant did not reveal anything. All he did was repeat what the Gonzi Commission had said in 1995. He spoke in a public discussion and agreed with the Gonzi Commission's recommendation. I do not feel he breeched any secrecy," Dr Vassallo said.