A request by representative of the Nationalist Party sitting on the Vote 16 Committee, to discuss the proposals put forward by the Leader of the Opposition in his eve of Independence Day speech in Floriana, was met with an email informing him and his colleagues that the committee members will soon be changed.

This newsroom is informed that PN representative on the Vote 16 Committee, Mark Anthony Sammut, asked the rest of the committee members for a meeting to discuss the proposals made by the PN Leader, Simon Busuttil, to have voting rights extended to those who are 16 years old and over.

Such proposals were also put forward by Partit Demokratiku Leader Marlene Farrugia and lately, by the National Youth Council.

The Vote 16 Committee was purposefully set up to study the possibility of having vote extended to those of 16 years and over and to carry out an information campaign if the proposed amendment gets the green light. However, the last meeting the committee had was earlier this year, in March.

In this light, Mr Sammut sent a request by email to Michael Cohen, who until June was chairing the committee, to have the meetings resumed and to discuss important matters which needed to be concluded and which were left dangling since their last meeting in March.  Besides the vote 16, the committee also had the discussion on the youth ambassadors’ role and their election on the agenda. 

However, the next reply Mr Sammut received was one that said that the Parliamentary Secretariat for Local Government is currently conducting an exercise to have a new committee elected.

This newsroom is also informed that the committee is currently without a chairperson as Mr Cohen has recently taken up a role at Transport Malta.

The committee is made up of various representatives, including one from the Opposition, from the National Youth Council, from KDZ and two lecturers at the University of Malta. The committee has not met since their last meeting on 21 March and it still stands without a newly appointed chairman.

The vote 16 issue was brought back to public attention in the last few days as two party leaders, Simon Busuttil and Marlene Farrugia, both said that this right should be extended as from the next general election.

Last Tuesday, as he was addressing the crowd which gathered at the Granaries in Floriana, PN leader Simon Busuttil proposed that the vote 16 be made possible from the coming general election.  Independent MP Marlene Farrugia said she will be calling upon the government to enact legislation allowing 16-year-olds to vote in the coming general election.

Writing on Facebook, Dr Farrugia said she will be presenting a motion in Parliament on Thursday with the aim of holding a debate in the House of Representatives leading to a change in the legislation.

A similar plea was also put forward by the National Youth Council.

Alternattiva Demokratika was the first party to propose Vote 16. The proposal was put forward in the AD's manifesto for the 2013 general elections. 

As it stands, sixteen-year-olds can vote in local council elections but so far cannot vote in general elections. 

Labour Party Youth Forum statement

Labour Party’s Youth Section FZL welcomes the news that in the upcoming budget, the government will begin a public consultation on whether 16 year-olds should be able to vote in general elections.

FZL believes that 16-year-olds should be given the right to vote, in the same way that this government allowed them to vote for local council elections.

Prime Minister Joseph Muscat had already declared last year throughout electoral campaigns for the local councils that this was the first step towards allowing 16 year-olds a vote for European Parliament elections as well as general elections.

Teenagers of that age have already taken a number of important decisions that determine their future, therefore they should also be given the chance to determine the future of their country.

Even though this government does not have the electoral mandate to give 16-year-olds the right to vote, it is still working to bring into force more civil rights as we have seen throughout the legislature. Throughout the government’s work in civil liberties, it is seeing that more rights are being given to youths which is why it is pushing for this public consultation.