Representing the Green Vote

After the Constitutional Court decided not to accept the PN’s petitions to reopen the counting process on the 8th and the 13th electoral districts it is clear that the Labour Party has elected 39 members of Parliament to the Nationalist Party’s 26.  This result has triggered a constitutional mechanism which ensures that the parliamentary seats assigned to candidates contesting the general elections on behalf of the PN correspond to the percentage of votes it obtained at a national level. This is a mechanism which restores proportionality and ensures that the proportion of parliamentary seats assigned to the PN and the PL corresponds to the votes which they obtained at first count stage. The Nationalist Party has been allocated four Parliamentary seats as a result of this constitutional mechanism bringing the total of its Parliamentary seats to 30.

This process of restoring proportionality is discriminatory as it has been applied to the Nationalist Party but at the same time it has ignored the 5506 votes which were obtained by Green candidates at first count stage. Using the same criteria which have been applied to the Nationalist Party the Greens should have been allocated one Parliamentary seat on the basis of the total number of votes polled.  This would be in addition to the Parliamentary seats already allocated.

Both the PN and the PL speak of their being tolerant of the views of others yet when push comes to shove they have ensured that the electoral system squeezes out all possible alternatives to a two party Parliament.  Every voter has the right to be represented, yet 5,500 voters are being deprived of this right.

The Maltese Parliament is known as the House of Representatives. Its 69 members represent 98.2% of the electorate. The other 1.8% are represented by Alternattiva Demokratika-The Green Party which through the application of a discriminatory electoral law is being obstructed from taking up its Parliamentary seat.

published on March 15, 2013 on di-ve.com