Who will govern?

The forthcoming general election is our country's most crucial one since independence. The rest of Europe is following with great attention what is unfolding in Malta. This election will give effect to the will of the people that has already been expressed unequivocally on March 8.

I firmly believe that the people are well aware of its importance. Not since the general election of 1987, have I been asked as many fundamental questions about basic rules of democracy and how our electoral system works. Persons who for one reason or another opted to give the referendum a miss, are coming forward and expressing their determination to participate in the electoral process.

In a fortnight's time we shall know the outcome. Again, it has been a long time since I have experienced such a high level of interest from persons from all walks of life, and of different political convictions.

This is appropriate, since the stakes could not be higher. Either the people confirm their decision to proceed to immediate membership of the European Union, or we stand to lose all our national credibility and the country would be condemned to uncertainty, instability and stagnation.

This did not have to be so. In a normal democracy, one would have expected the Opposition to admit that its lie machine and scaremongering did not work, that no less than 54 per cent opted for membership and would have accepted the result.

In that scenario the most important aspect about the country's future would have been settled fairly and squarely and in the general election we would have focused on the different policies as well as merits and demerits that characterise the different political parties.

It has not been our choice that when the referendum result was emerging as clearly as can be, the Leader of the Opposition hijacked his own party and behaved the way he did at Ta' Qali.

Nor has it been our choice that after declaring a 'partnership' victory, he proceeded to suggest that he would hold another referendum supposedly to offer a choice between membership and 'partnership', only to kill his own bizarre invention by proclaiming a few days later that if elected Prime Minister, he would not sign Malta's Accession Treaty with the EU in Athens on April 16.

That means that if Dr Alfred Sant had to be elected Prime Minister, our right to join the EU would have been destroyed from minute one. Considering that the 'partnership' option in any case does not exist, the referendum he is mentioning would offer a choice between two non-existent and fictitious options. It would be the most fazull referendum that could ever be dreamt of.

A genuine Labour supporter who voted for EU membership told me that after hearing his leader proclaim that he would not sign the accession treaty, he realised that the carrot that was being dangled to attract the likes of him within the Labour family was chopped off even before anyone was lured to chase it, albeit in vain.

That is why the forthcoming general election represents a national call that supersedes any call being made by one party or another. To safeguard membership and the will of the people, we owe it to our own country and future generations to vote for the Nationalist Party. There is no other way to do justice to the historic opportunity that lies ahead of us.

I am convinced that our electorate as that in any other modern nation is a mature one. We no longer think of our vote as a perpetual lease that is entered with one party or another. Persons who vote one way or another have not necessarily always voted in the same way, and much less can it be deduced that they will always vote the same way in the future.

The bottom line is who will govern after April 12. What is our duty to ensure for our own country now? Will Dr Fenech Adami be our Prime Minister, or will it be Dr Sant?

According to Article 80 of our Constitution, "wherever there shall be occasion for the appointment of a Prime Minister, the President shall appoint as Prime Minister the member of the House of Representatives who, in his judgment, is best able to command the support of a majority of the members of the House."

How does it all work out?

There are three rules that are enshrined in our Constitution.

The first is that if, in a general election, a political party obtains in the aggregate more than 50 per cent of all the valid votes cast plus one, as credited to its candidates by the Electoral Commission at the first count of all the votes, then that party is guaranteed to be in a position to govern, since even if for whatever reason it would not have secured a majority of seats, the Electoral Commission would allocate in its favour such number of extra seats as may be necessary to have a majority of one over the total of the other elected candidates.

This is known as the absolute majority rule. Our country, from 1981 to 1987, had to pay a high price before having this rule entrenched in our Constitution. In those years, the Nationalist Party had spearheaded a national movement to restore democracy and ensure that if what happened in 1981 (a party wins a majority of seats against a party which obtains the absolute majority of votes) recurs, there would be a corrective mechanism whereby extra seats are allocated to ensure that the party in government will be the one obtaining the absolute majority of valid votes cast at the election, and not the other way round.

The other two rules refer to a situation where none of the political parties contesting the election obtain an absolute majority of valid votes cast.

The Constitution, following an amendment introduced in 1996, provides that if at a general election contested by more than two political parties and in which only candidates of two parties are elected, a political party obtains a percentage of all the valid votes cast at such election, as credited to its candidates by the Electoral Commission at the first count of all the votes, which is greater than that obtained by any other party, then again that party is guaranteed that it would govern.

This can be referred to as the 'relative majority' rule in a situation where only two parties obtain seats in the House of Representatives, but since a third or more parties have contested, neither of the two parties that win seats would have secured more than 50 per cent of all valid votes cast. In this case, it is the party that obtains the highest number of No. 1 votes in the first count that governs, even if the party that would have obtained fewer votes inherits all or most of the votes of the third party that does not manage to secure any seat and a later count (that is from the second count downwards) manages to obtain an absolute majority of votes as well as a majority of the 65 seats allocated from the 13 electoral districts.

There are no two ways about it: whichever party in this scenario obtains the highest number of No. 1 votes governs.

The third rule refers to a situation where more than two parties contest the general election, and more than two parties obtain seats. In the forthcoming election this rule would apply if PN, MLP as well as AD win seats and if none of these parties obtains more than 50 per cent of all valid votes.

In this scenario, the result depends exclusively on the number of seats actually obtained by each party from the 13 districts. In this scenario there is no corrective mechanism. This can also be referred to as the second relative majority rule that caters only for a situation where three or more parties secure seats in the House of Representatives.

Over the past week I have found it amusing (to put it politely) to see a section of the media concentrate all its prime space and energy on one rule as opposed to another. Anyone who feels it his duty to explain the rules of the game to the electorate should simply quote all three rules. Any other approach could only be an exercise in misinformation.

The rules of the game make it incumbent on every voter to make his or her choices cautiously. When a voter chooses a candidate for the first preference, that voter is also making a choice for the party represented by that candidate.

Then in making subsequent preferences, it would certainly be useful to secure that the party we would like to see in government also obtains a majority of seats and avoid any 'hung Parliament' situation.

In the forthcoming general election, the choice is fundamental. It is the choice for Europe and again for the basics of democracy. That choice is best exercised through selecting a candidate from the Nationalist Party team in your district for your first preference, and then proceeding to give the next preferences, in whichever order you deem fit, to all the other candidates belonging to the same Nationalist Party team.

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