Cheryl Micallef-Borg
An important amendment Bill was discussed in Parliament at Committee Stage yesterday evening.
As explained by Justice and Home Affairs Minister Tonio Borg and Opposition Leader Alfred Sant respectively, the Bill makes provision for the following main points:
• Gozo shall be considered as one electoral district. Therefore the electoral boundary rule, +/– 5% of the electoral quota multiplied by the number of MPs to be returned overall, shall not apply to Gozo. In this regard, Dr Sant commented that “they are the fairest divisions we have had in the past 20 years.” He said the problem in Gozo was not due to its natural demography but rather, to a situation created by Gozo Channel which was granting reduced fares to Gozo residents. This resulted in most who have a second residence there changing their ID registration to Gozo.
• The other electoral districts shall not be changed until after the next general election.
• Seats in parliament will be calculated by taking into consideration only the votes achieved from the parties that were elected to parliament.
• Proportionality will be achieved by increasing the number of seats returned in parliament according to the number of votes received.
• The number of seats given to each party shall reflect the number of votes they received. Therefore, the number of seats returned to parliament will likely be more than 65, yet always an odd number.
Opening the debate, Dr Sant said that although the Labour Party agrees to all the changes being made, he felt he should still give an explanation.
He went into a historical rendition of the discussion, agreement and disagreement relating to the measures being adopted, beginning in July 2006, when Gozo as a sole electoral district was first discussed in parliament.
The Opposition Leader accused Dr Borg of denying the existence of an agreement package, back in December 2006 – something which the minister, in his rebuttal labelled as “a misunderstanding”. “Yet to be fair two days later the party confirmed it,” Dr Sant said.
Dr Sant also spoke about the Bill’s delay. “We had hoped that we would have time to mull over the amendments, as it is quite a complicated package,” he admitted. However, having made an in-depth comparison between the old and new calculation systems using past election results, he said, “that which is being proposed today is not only good, but superior to that which we have now. This is because votes are being proportionally reflected in the seats returned in all cases.”
Minister Tonio Borg agreed with the Opposition Leader from a technical point of view.
Disagreements between the parties, he felt, were due to a Labour proposal regarding a relative majority victory in a multi-party system which would give them an absolute majority – something the Nationalists would categorically not accept. Justifying the Bill’s delay, the minister highlighted that “it is a great task to express this complexity in words. There were several drafts, from both sides, that did not correctly reflect the agreements made”.
Delving into the Bill’s nitty-gritty, which is mainly contained in Schedule 13 part 4 of the General Elections Act, now being entrenched in the Constitution, Dr Borg said that the old mechanism was only put into effect when there was a perversion of the result. Now the new one will take effect in any case.
An interesting point to note is that those who have a suspended sentence will now qualify for voting.
With the new amendments, visually-impaired people who previously could not vote on their own and were assisted by an assistant electoral commissioner, will now be able to vote on their own.
Options being considered are Braille votes and a playback system to show people where to vote.
This shall be regulated by the General Elections Act, and the Local Councils Act, as it shall be allowed in both types of elections.
All amendments were agreed upon unanimously. The Bill’s third reading was passed.