If 'partnership' has won, then...

Voters are hereby intimated to ask the political parties whether now their voters are to support them at the general elections by abstaining, voting for them or cancelling their vote by writing "Europe" on their ballot paper?

If some decide not to abstain, or to write "Europe" on the ballot paper then, according to the Sant-Vella 2003 "partnership" rules on elections, be warned. In order to win the election you have to poll not one vote less then 148,940 plus one. That is one half plus one of all the registered voters in Malta.

No, you understood correctly, not the majority of votes cast at the election but the majority of all votes registered. Always according to "partnership" rules.

Not one vote less. Life is hard but that is what "partnership" rules mean.

No! Not even if you beat the opposing party by 20,000 votes and claim 54 per cent of all the votes cast at the general election which may even rise up to 91 per cent of the voters, may you go on a carcade and celebrate victory.

The others will be asked to celebrate.

No! You cannot try to persuade through the sophisticated party propaganda machine the registered voters who, God forbid, may die from now till April 12. Much less can you vote for those who unfortunately may be abroad for unforeseen but unavoidable reasons on April 12. Even those who have been life-long members of the your party but cannot vote will be counted against you on April 12.

All these will now be counted against your party and there is not much that can be done according to "partnership" electoral laws. C'est la vie!

In fact, one might as well tell the voters of all the other parties to stay at home on April 12 because the only thing that matters now is to get not one vote less than 148,490 votes plus one.

Nothing else matters!

Naturally one has to forget that in 1996 the MLP and the PN in 1998 did not get 50 per cent plus one of all the registered voters, but that they only got 50 per cent plus one of all the votes cast at the respective general elections.

This does not matter because it would seem that everything is going to be different now where the rules of democracy are concerned.

Nor does it matter that, in countries like Switzerland, where the referendum is the way of life, the electors decide issues with a turnout of less than 50 per cent as was the case of the vote on asylum seekers where 46.7 per cent of the Swiss turned out with: 50.1 per cent voting no, 49.9 per cent voting yes and the difference out of two million voters was only of 3,422.

Incidentally, neither the yes nor the no vote tried to add to their vote the other 53 per cent of the voters who did not bother to turn out to vote! Neither was the total number of voters registered invoked.

Now, dear voters, at least you can realise what the yes vote has had to face during the referendum according to "partnership" rules of democracy. To be fair, we were only two per cent away from that incredible result. But "partnership" rules are what they are.

It would certainly not be fair if now that the election has been called for April 12 the ordinary, normal rules of democracy be reactivated instead of the "partnership" way of doing things.

Fair is fair. Or is it?