Updated 8am with comment by Peter Agius

Labour MEP candidate Alex Agius Saliba handed out 100 vouchers – each worth €150 – to voters during home visits and on the streets – a potentially unlawful practice he claims will not sway people’s votes.

The vouchers entitle the holder to a €150 ‘laptop/PC service’ from The Notebook Centre, a computer and electronics shop in San Ġwann.

It specifies that the voucher is only redeemable for a back-up, general servicing, physical cleaning, re-formatting, virus removal and for the installation of free anti-virus software. It is transferable and is valid until February.

But the vouchers – which have a total value of €15,000 – seemingly violate a law that forbids the practice known as ‘treating’.

Electoral law defines ‘treating’ as the act of providing food, drink, entertainment or provision before, during or after an election for the purpose of corruptly influencing people’s votes.

Agius Saliba insists, however, he broke no law and the vouchers were not an attempt to influence people’s voting intentions.

“A free anti-virus subscription or computer format will not sway one’s vote,” he told Times of Malta.

On Sunday morning, PN MEP candidate Peter Agius told Facebook followers he too had met a family who had received one of the vouchers.

"This is 'corrupt practice'. According to the law, whoever does this can lose their seat once elected.

"No wonder they protect Muscat. No wonder they don't want to hear about the rule-of-law. PL buys votes to win and is willing to break all legislation to succeed."

'In no way can vouchers be deemed as a treat'

“These vouchers may in no way be deemed as a treat intended to corrupt or influence an individual’s vote and portraying them as such would serve solely to deflect attention from the real issues at stake in this election; choosing representatives who will improve the well-being of Maltese workers, consumers and vulnerable groups.”

Agius Saliba, Labour’s top candidate and the only sitting MEP seeking re-election next month, admitted the computer shop donated the 100 vouchers to him for his electoral campaign.

He decided to hand them out during his door-to-door visits because he felt it made no sense to raffle them during a coffee morning or other fundraising activities, since these events are generally attended by an elderly cohort of people, he explained.

“I therefore opted to distribute these vouchers whenever the right opportunity arose during my door-to-door visits, with the exception of 20 vouchers distributed this week on my way to a door-to-door session in Ħamrun (St Joseph Street). No vouchers were distributed during mass events or gatherings,” he said.

They will be declared as a donation- PL MEP Alex Agius Saliba

“They will be declared as a donation as per established procedure and in accordance with the General Election Act. The vouchers, as clearly indicated, are redeemable solely for services they provide (formatting and backups).”

He said he is informed that vouchers just like them are “widely distributed by many different entities and have little to no glamour due to their narrow scope, usually related to educational activities”.

Times of Malta called one of Agius Saliba’s aides on Friday morning, purporting to be a voter who needs a new mobile phone and enquiring whether he can get one of the vouchers and use it to purchase the phone.

The voucher for the NoteBook Centre.

Aide: 'Vouchers handed out during house visits'

The aide admitted the vouchers were handed out during house visits but said he could not give him one and even if he did, he could not use it to buy the phone.

The law says: “Any person who corruptly by himself or by any other person, either before, during or after an election, directly or indirectly, gives or provides, or pays wholly or in part the expense of giving or providing any food, drink, entertainment, or provision to or for any person, for the purpose of corruptly influencing that person or any other person to give or refrain from giving his vote at the election, or on account of such person or any other person having voted of refrained from voting or being about to vote of refrain from voting at such election, shall be guilty of the offense of treating.”

It also specifies that the voter who corruptly accepts the handout shall also be guilty of the offence.

Questions sent to the management of The Notebook Centre remained unanswered.

This is what the electoral law says on ‘treating’.

In good company

But Agius Saliba is by no means the first or only candidate to give handouts. Myriad politicians from both parties have been doing it much creatively over the years.

In their obligatory expenses filings following the 2022 election, candidates from both parties admitted to blowing money on gifts and entertainment.

Joe Giglio, the PN’s biggest campaign spender, dropped €462 on rose boxes in March that year. Later Giglio clarified that his were not handouts, but tokens that were distributed to people who had already paid to attend an event and that their payment was used to cover the expenses of the same event. Thus, he told Times of Malta, there was absolutely no comparison between the €15,000 worth of vouchers handed out by Agius Saliba and his handouts - worth €472.

Labour’s Owen Bonnici took a different tack, in the knowledge that the way to a voter’s heart is through their stomach.

He held two pasta buffets on successive nights at the Grand Excelsior in Floriana, at a total cost of €9,600, and Roderick Galdes – who was the campaign’s biggest spender – declared €4,300 on alcohol during the campaign. And that was just a fraction of his total spend.