Tying knots with numbers

As preparations for a decision by the electorate on whether Malta should join the EU at the next enlargement enter the final phase, the arguments for and against should be presented as clearly as possible.

That is necessary to enable the margin of the electorate that will not be voting along strictly partisan party lines to reach an informed conclusion. Instead, the run-in to the referendum and general election opens with a determined effort by the "for" and "against" lobbies to cloud the issue further, attempting to tie up public opinion in knots with numbers.

Those in favour of membership use two sets of figures. They point with glee to the number of Euro politicians and bureaucrats who are coming to Malta with the message that membership would be good for the island. To the extent that these visitors state facts about what membership and the alternative of non-membership would and would not consist of, they do make a useful contribution.

Voters should not be taken for a ride with misinformation, from any source. Otherwise such visits add only to the total tourist inflow, if they spend at least one night in Malta. Some of the visitors have in fact given blunt and basic information. Pity that at times it was coloured - therefore rendered less clear and meaningful - by local sources.

The second set of figures used by pro-membership publicists, to tie knots much more gaudy than the first set, relates to opinion polls. These are being carried out very regularly, sometimes openly, at others surreptitiously with the results held clutched to the non-transparent chests of party hacks. The pro-lobby shouts "Ole!" with fervour as each revealed poll shows that, among those who agree to give their opinion, there is a varying but distinct majority in favour of joining the EU. The enthusiastic chorus deliberately ignores two factors that, in my sober assessment, should be stressed.

One is that those who express themselves in the sample polled do so on the basis of how they view prospects when polled - they intend to vote "yes" to membership as things stand now. There remains many a possible slip twixt cup and lip.

The other, far more important, factor is the number of "don't know" and "no comment" responses. That proportion is so persistently high that it makes any prediction on the final outcome most tenuous.

The strands of the knot tied by the "no" publicists are also obvious enough. They are being drawn from the two referenda held on the Nice treaty in Ireland. The first one yielded a "No" on a turnout of about a third of the electorate. The second gave a clear "Yes" on a higher turnout, just under half of the electorate. Those against the treaty stayed constant at roughly half-a-million voters. Part of the "anti" lobby in Malta interpreted both outcomes on the basis of the total electorate, not of those who actually voted.

Such an approach is not uncommon when commentators, for instance, dissect some particular voting result. The number of electors who turn out in presidential elections in the USA, say, tends to be consistently low. Taking the electorate as a whole (100 per cent) the elected president will usually have the support of roughly a quarter of all those entitled to vote.

The incumbent President George W. Bush was the choice of a minority - and not the majority - of those who botherd to amble to the ballot box.

Odd and rather capricious lady, Madam Democracy, wherever it is she plies her trade.

Yet, such electoral outcomes are legally binding, however dubious one may find them in terms of legitimacy. George Bush it is who presides over the USA and to whom, as it so happens, two ex-Labour premiers decided to appeal for peace just days ago.

The local "No" lobby still uses the "100 per cent" base argument to go on to prepare to apply it to Malta. It knots susceptible minds in unnecessary confusion. It is one thing to say that the referendum on EU membership will not be binding, once there are no legal provisions to commit the parties to the result. It is quite another to speak of a "100 per cent base" to determine whether any forthcoming electoral decision should be accepted by the losing side.

By that yardstick, were a party to garner 52 per cent first preferences in a 96 per cent turnout at the general election, it would be denied office because it would have the backing of only 44 per cent of the whole electorate.

Such exercises in alienation and confusion reflect little respect for the people's intelligence.