The wise voter and tactical voting

For us voters democracy means the will of the majority as expressed at free elections. Yet, to achieve our clear idea of democracy at elections or referenda may not be so easy.

Alfred Sant has promised to renegotiate our agreement with the EU but remains obstinate in his refusal to accept the 2003 referendum result even calling referenda an instrument of the "right" before the University students.

His theory of democracy is refuted by none other than the British Labour Party. Unlike Dr Sant, their leader Harold Wilson pledged a referendum on the EU, before the general election. He kept his word and out of a turnout of 64.5 per cent, a majority of 67 per cent voted yes to remain in the EU.

By Dr Sant's rules of democracy, the no would have won, because he, and he alone, adds the abstentions to the no vote.

Mr Wilson's Labour colleague, the famous left winger Tony Benn, ardently campaigned for the no vote and, yet, he did not do what his Maltese Labour colleague does up to this very day, namely say the no vote won. Mr Benn said: "When the British people speak everyone, including members of Parliament, should tremble before their decision and that's certainly the spirit with which I accept the result of the referendum".

So voters must this time insist that their democratic rights be respected "by everyone" and once Dr Sant is still pursuing his agenda so must we, and not only yes voters, give a clear message: No referendum then no renegotiation.

To do this, the correct use of our first preference vote is fundamental: The party which obtains the absolute majority of number one votes is assured to govern no matter the candidates elected from the districts. There may be candidates form all four parties elected, still only one party will govern with more than half of all the seats in Parliament.

At the first count of votes, all of Malta and Gozo becomes one nationwide district. The Electoral Commission, on communicating the outcome of the first preference count, will be announcing in effect whether for the next five years we will be led by Nationalist leader Lawrence Gonzi or by the Labour leader, Dr Sant.

This direct popular verdict will prevail notwithstanding any other outcome deriving from the election of candidates from the single districts through the second, third and other subsequent counts. Our electoral system, therefore, rewards that single party which comes first in the race of the first preference votes, even if just by one first preference, over the single second-placed party.

Not only.

As from this election the winning party is guaranteed to govern by more than one seat, even if extra seats are added to prevent any perverse result. However, proportionality only applies between the parties in Parliament. So, in a two-party Parliament the number one votes of the small parties will be ignored for this purpose.

Let's take the 1996 result as an example. Labour would have a majority of three instead of one seat. The history of Malta would have taken a very different course because, with a three-seat majority, the Sant government would not have been brought down by Dom Mintoff and Malta would certainly not be in the EU today!

Voters are to note that the increase of the MLP's majority from one to three seats would be possible today even if it had won only a relative majority of number one votes, as long as Parliament is made up of only two parties.

The only example of a party wining with a relative majority of votes is the poll of 1966. At that election, the PN obtained the relative majority of 48 per cent of first preference votes, the MLP 42 per cent with four small parties contesting separately and obtaining the remaining 10 nine per cent. The PN elected a majority in Parliament of six seats over the MLP and the small parties did not elect one seat.

Today, if the party with the relative majority (48 per cent of number one votes) did not win an absolute majority in Parliament then seats will be added to give it such a majority.

The 1966 result is relevant to this year's election in a more important sense.

It proves that the extinction of the small party from Parliament is not due to unfavourable electoral laws, as they constantly claim. Otherwise, how do they explain that no third party or even independent candidates were elected in 1966, 1971, 1976 and in 1981 when there were no majority systems to prevent perverse electoral results? The two-party Parliament is the result of clever tactical voting by voters maximising the efficiency of the single transferable vote at their disposal to express a majority in Parliament!

In each of the nine elections after independence, voters made sure that their preferences equalled the number of candidates of one party in that district. In this way a voter's preferences are only passed on from one candidate to another of the same party until the vote ends up only in the pack of an elected member of that party. In whichever case it will never end up in the pack of a candidate from another party. The party with most of such efficient votes wins more seats from the districts and, therefore, a majority in Parliament.

Small parties know their limitations very well even if they don't say it. They only present one or two candidates per district who in no way can "outlast" the big political parties with as many as 10 candidates all passing on any unused preferences to each other!

In the light of all this, voters must be very careful, particularly those in districts targeted by the small parties. The danger of falling between two stools is real.

Learn from what happened to George Bonello Dupuis in 1966.

The 1966 election was the last time any third party candidate came anywhere near obtaining a seat. Significantly it was in today's 10th district.

Dr Bonello Dupuis's party, then the Christian Workers' Party, had obtained 8,561 of the first preferences or six per cent of the first preferences nationwide. He personally ended up imdendel (hung) being the sole remaining candidate in the district neither elected nor eliminated. In other words in an electoral limbo.

What wouldn't Harry Vassallo do to grab for Alternattiva Demokratika a share of votes equivalent to those 8,000 first preferences nationwide? Yet, even such a phenomenal increase in votes over the past election will not guarantee a seat and, worse still, will distort the two-horse race for who is to govern the country.

Tellingly, Dr Bonello Dupuis obtained 698 first preference votes and inherited 1,211 preferences from other candidates (just 800 votes short of making it). These votes were inherited from the anti-Mintoffian coalition from both his party and those of the Nationalist Party.

Applied to today 's electoral system, the third party candidate would all the same not be elected, with the added disaster that the overall dispersion of 8,000 former Nationalist number one votes would give the MLP a determining advantage where the real contest will be fought, namely the battle of the first preference votes at the national level!

If this isn't falling between two stools then I don't know what would be.

You can rest assured that, this time, if the MLP gets 48 per cent of the first count votes with the PN, AD and AN put together winning the other 52 per cent, Dr Sant will not say that he won't govern because there are more votes against than in favour !

Be wise.