Will switching our electoral system to a single national district improve our politics? The latest editorial by The Sunday Times of Malta gives a resounding yes but I doubt it.
It might make things worse. Consider the following examples:
During the 2017 election campaign, a Labour candidate was carrying out house visits. He enjoyed a reputation for honesty (“for a politician”) but was running for office in a Labour stronghold and his immediate rivals were fellow Labour heavy hitters.
In one household, a bristling mother displayed a huge wad of her son’s unpaid traffic fines. “It’s a scandal,” she declared, “none of them was fair.” Our candidate pocketed the lot and the fines were not heard of again.
During that electoral campaign, you may remember, half the army received a promotion on the eve of the vote.
Such clientalism is what the editorial had in mind when arguing for a change in the electoral system.
The argument: we should move to make the whole of Malta a single district; it would significantly reduce the trading of votes for favours, which arise out of the parochialism of our small electoral districts.
Really? Yes, our politician did suspend his honesty because of his fellow-Labour rivals. But he couldn’t have performed the favour without a decision, taken by his party leadership, to use State authorities for electoral purposes.
Likewise, the army promotions couldn’t have happened without partisan control over the armed forces.
Ditto for the recent traffic licensing scandal, shown to have involved operatives within the Office of the Prime Minister as well as the Transport Ministry.
As for the recent disability benefits scandal, it raised such a stink because of its industrial scale. Its cause was not a single rogue politician trying to steal a march over his district rivals. It couldn’t have happened without institutional capture.
A change in the electoral system will not change a corrupt administration’s determination to use its power of incumbency to dispense illegitimate favours.
Even if scale (‘smallness’) is a factor inciting clientelism, the shift to a national district won’t suddenly make our electoral politics ‘big’. Executive dominance and corruption are not eliminated by having one electoral district.
And if you’re worried about political tribalism, that ship is today piloted by the partisan media and social media, not the electoral system. Clientelism bribes people who lack sufficient tribal solidarity. Tribesmen do not shift votes; for them, it’s my tribe right or wrong.
A single national district will not eliminate ruthless intra-party rivalry. It will simply transfer it from out in the open to behind closed doors, as it is elsewhere
Another argument for a single national district: it will eliminate the cut-throat competition driven by the fact that winning a seat sometimes comes down to a few votes.
So, the argument goes, that would reduce the clout that individual voters have over candidates. A national district will increase the margins of victory and make disgraceful auctions for favours unnecessary.
The reasoning looks good on paper. Let’s look at practice. The margin of victory by one political party over another has never been greater than in the last three elections. Labour has steamrollered over the Nationalist Party.
But disgraceful clientelism, too, has never been greater. It’s in a different league from the past. Why? Because winning big is a political goal of its own. It demoralises any opposition.
Far from eliminating clientelistic corruption, the prospect of winning big has actually incited it. The aura of invincibility, the destruction of hope for change, facilitates a culture of impunity.
Another reason given to move to a single district is that it would ‘make it increasingly difficult for candidates to make parochial promises that only cater to specific communities’.
Perhaps. But what about the promises that cater for national lobbies and big money? They would likely increase.
In 2019, the successful MEP candidates spent between €35,000 and €48,000 on their campaign; the exceptions, Alfred Sant (€17,000) and Miriam Dalli (€26,000), had legacy advantages that compensated.
Which candidate is going to get that kind of money without becoming even more beholden to the businessmen whose greed already threatens our democracy and security?
By raising the money stakes, it becomes more difficult, not less, for a third party to smash our current duopoly. Higher expenses create the need for a bigger electoral machine and more compromises with donors.
If you want to break the duopoly, the answer is to introduce a national threshold that guarantees a parliamentary seat for the political party that meets it.
Finally, a single national district will not eliminate ruthless intra-party rivalry. It will simply transfer it from out in the open to behind closed doors, as it is elsewhere.
Where the system offers party lists – a list of party candidates whose order reflects the order in which they will be elected – ruthless jockeying and in-fighting is not eliminated. It simply takes place within party structures.
That system tends to call for conformist politicians who are part of the machine or ready to please the leadership. More independent-minded politicians do less well, unless they build their own faction within the party.
The price to pay for a system based on a party list is greater centralisation of power within the leadership – greater tribalism, not less.
Even if we dispense with party lists, candidates competing on national terrain will need the favour of the party leadership – for visibility on its media and in its press conferences – even more than they do now.
Winning big, not just winning, will remain important for individual candidates. A higher national tally than their rivals will help determine if they get a ministry and their clout around the decision-making table.
The point behind my scepticism is simple. It’s not that we have the best of all possible worlds. On the contrary, I agree that the country’s future is in jeopardy unless we get radical political change.
But we address the problems by pointing to the truly significant causes: weak leadership, a fading sense of the national interest, corruption going right up to the top, institutional capture and a culture of impunity.