Last Sunday, Joseph Muscat said that the Labour Party always respected democracy.
Well, maybe he should be reminded of what happened in the 1981 election, but given that in the same speech he also said that he does not like being accused about political situations which took place at a time when he was either unborn or at school, we’ll leave it at that.
But on situations that are happening today, Joseph Muscat, who is no longer at school but is the prime ruler of this country, cannot shirk his responsibility towards the electorate.
Last week, the constitutional court ordered that the Nationalist Party is given two extra seats in the House of Representatives following a case regarding misplaced votes that cost the PN a 3-2 defeat in both the eighth and 13th electoral districts.
I am sure the government will stick to its promise and appeal the judgment. Probably it will wait until the last available minute to do so, in order to protract the issue as much as possible, in the same way that it delayed the proceedings in the constitutional court. A case that should have taken two or three sittings took nearly two years.
Rightly so, our law allows for appeals to be made on any judgments, but there are certain questions that need to be raised on this particular sentence.
First of all, the case brought about by the Nationalist Party was against the Electoral Commission. Since the judgment, the commission has remained silent on the case, and it was only the prime minister, justice minister and other Labour exponents who spoke about the matter.
Why is it so? The commission, as far as is known, in an autonomous institution with a mind of its own, so why is it that the government is speaking up on the matter? Why should it be the government to feel the need that it should appeal the judgment? What does the Electoral Commission have to say?
Will it be only the government that appeals, given that third parties can resort to such measure? Or will it be the Electoral Commission that does so? Will they both do it? As things stand now, it is hard to say considering that the commission has not reacted to the judgment, at least in public.
There’s another issue. The election was contested by the Labour Party – so the government should strictly speaking have nothing to do with it, since it is the Labour Party that has “suffered” from the outcome as a third party.
There is supposed to be a distinction between the government and the Labour Party, but in this case it does not seem to be so. Why should it be the government that reacts to the issue, and not the Labour Party? Why should Joseph Muscat immediately tweet that the “government” will be appealing the judgment? Why should such an important judgment be appealed by the government using all its resources paid out of taxpayers’ money, and not by the Labour Party, which has its own structures and funds?
Saying one respects democracy is one thing, really doing it is another.