Malta’s voting system, whereby electoral candidates from the same party compete among each other for a small number of voters, provides fertile ground for unethical favours, experts have warned.

The country’s small size, a culture of impunity, and a society where personal relationships are very important have also been cited as a recipe for clientelism, which has weighed down the country for years.

The issue was propelled into the public discourse in recent weeks after Times of Malta revealed two major scandals – a disability benefits scam spanning back years, as well as a driving tests racket – both intended to help voters get access to funds they were not entitled to, or to get fast-tracked through the system. In both scandals, Labour politicians, party and public officials have been implicated.

Evarist Bartolo

Bartolo: Patronage could lead to a failed state

Former minister Evarist Bartolo warned that clientelism could turn Malta into a “failed state”.

“If clientelism and patronage are encouraged and become systemic, instead of containing them and reducing them as much as possible, a country like ours, already in a fragile and shallow state because of our smallness, will become a failed state,” said Bartolo.

“A nation of parasites has no chance of survival in a world in the 21st century that needs talent, entrepreneurship and resilience to compete successfully for investment, markets and an effective and dignified role in the world,” he said.  

He said people let down by the system should be helped. But that should not mean undermining institutions set up to serve all citizens impartially. 

Bartolo, who was first elected to parliament in 1992, said the single transferable vote system “breeds a political culture” where a candidate has to do all they can to win votes.

“Politicians can be close to voters through home visits, participating in the life of the community, being ready to take calls and following up on requests for help, but that should not mean that you have to dispense illicit favours,” Bartolo said. 

Most politicians come from the legal and medical profession, and their voters are also their clients, and that could mean there are no boundaries between professional and political relations, he said. In small societies like Malta, personal relations are stronger than institutional arrangements, but that should not mean abandoning the rule of law and meritocracy.

The countries with the lowest levels of corruption don’t have purer people. They make it more difficult to practice corruption undetected- Ranier Fsadni

MEP Cyrus Engerer has advocated for a change in Malta’s voting system.

“There is no one perfect (voting) system, however, we need one which is more pluralistic, representative and that strives as much as possible to reduce clientelism,” the MEP said.

A change in the electoral system, a drastic reform in party and candidate laws, financing laws, transparency law, and a full-time parliament “that holds the executive to account” are needed to improve Maltese democracy, Engerer said.

Ranier Fsadni

Fsadni: Cleaner countries don't have purer people

Asked about the systematic causes of the scandals, anthropologist and Times of Malta opinion writer Ranier Fsadni said the globally accepted causes of systemic corruption are well established. They include a lack of transparency, a lack of checks and balances and a culture of impunity. 

“Other countries have STV and there’s no pattern of political scandal linked to it,” he said. “The countries with the lowest levels of corruption don’t have purer people. They have better laws, independent police, and a developed sense of the national interest. They make it more difficult to practise corruption undetected. They prosecute, punish and politically ostracise whoever is caught,” he said.

But Fsadni said the Maltese government has made corruption easier; it resists transparency and has eroded checks and balances. “It treats public administration as a fiefdom. It has greatly expanded its discretionary powers, in practice. It is not accountable and fosters a culture of impunity. It displays no respect for the national interest,” he said. 

Fellow anthropologist Mark-Anthony Falzon said that while attempting to gloss over the latest revelations as examples of small-island politics, we should instead “judge by appearances”. He said that the present government appears to have “let too many functions of the state be colonised and compromised by sleaze and corruption”.

Jean Claude Cachia, who lectures at the Institute for European Studies, said that while clientelism might not necessarily be illegal, it can be considered as unethical, especially when favours are given at the expense of others.

Some experts have proposed a closed list, or even having Malta as one district, like the European elections, which could make it more difficult to conduct these transactions.

In a 2019 paper titled ‘How Smallness Fosters Clientelism: A Case Study of Malta’, Wouter Veenendaal, an expert in small-state politics, argues that Malta’s small size and the STV system leads to “clientelistic exchanges between voters and politicians”.

One politician, who remained unnamed, explained to the academic how the system works: “In the end you are not fighting to try to convince someone from the opposite party to vote for you, but you try to convince people from your party not to vote for X but for you. So I can offer you a fridge, a washing machine, and this is what’s happening.”

Malta’s voting system – the Single Transferrable Vote

A polling station at Cospicua

Malta’s voting system, the so-called single transferable vote (STV), as well as the country’s small districts, means that competition is fierce. And voters and politicians have learned to maximise their opportunity.

Through the single transferable vote system, voters rank multiple candidates in order of preference. To win a seat, the candidates need a quota of votes. Surplus votes from elected and eliminated candidates are transferred to the remaining choices based on voters’ preferences until all seats are filled.

Some 27,000 registered voters are in each of Malta’s 13 electoral districts, each electing a minimum of five candidates.