PN decries electoral district boundary changes as ADPD blames both big parties

Proposed changes to electoral district boundaries are “unacceptable” and will end up weakening the voice of residents in many affected localities, the Nationalist Party said on Wednesday.

The changes - first revealed exclusively by Times of Malta in January - were officially unveiled in a report tabled in parliament on Tuesday.

If adopted, the changes will among other things split Birkirkara, Marsascala and Naxxxar across two districts, move Pieta’ from the 1^st district to the 9^th, and Luqa and Żebbuġ residents once again combined into a single district.

Revisions to electoral districts are carried out to reflect demographic changes, to ensure all districts (bar Gozo, which remains a single district) have total populations that do not differ by more than five per cent.  

PN says it has its own plan

Those changes have drawn the ire of the PN Opposition, which argues localities should not be divided unless absolutely necessary to ensure residents’ views are not diluted across district boundaries.

PN members of the Electoral Commission – which is composed of representatives of the Labour and Nationalist parties – have submitted a minority report with their own proposals for how electoral district boundaries should change.

“Efforts were made in this report to avoid splitting any town or village in Malta, as far as possible. The only exception was Madliena, which, being a hamlet, was proposed to be shifted on its own to a different district,” the PN said in a statement.

The PN did not provide details of what its minority report is proposing. But sources said the PN plan would keep localities intact, rather than splitting them across districts, but would significantly reconfigure the makeup of districts to keep within the five per cent threshold.  

ADPD: Both parties are happy with this system

But the PN’s proposals have been met with scepticism by the ADPD, which in its own statement said both major parties were intent on twisting the electoral system to favour themselves.

“They devised our electoral system and it is open wide to district jerrymandering,” said ADPD Secretary-General Ralph Cassar. “History has shown that every time one of them is in government, they meddled with districts to suit themselves. Labour is doing the same thing now,” Cassar said. “In a well-devised system, the way districts are split would have no impact on the election’s outcome.”

ADPP chairperson Sandra Gauci agreed, and said the PN was now experiencing the impact of what it did when it was in government.

“The PN will now have to bow its head, as Labour had to in the past. But both are ultimately happy, because they know that when it’s their turn they will be able to meddle for their own party’s benefit.”