The Electoral Commission is at it again. This time it is a little bit earlier than usual.

It is normal for the electoral boundaries to be periodically revised. The Constitution itself provides the parameters for such a revision. In fact, article 61 of the Constitution provides that once the revised electoral boundaries are established, they cannot be altered before at least two years have elapsed, but definitely before five years.

It has been normal practice, for ages, that towards the end of the five-year validity period of the electoral boundaries a proposal for their revision is prepared. The last revision was finalised on the 16 March 2021, meaning that the next one is not technically due before 2026 at the latest, that is to say another year.

This is in fact the first take from the Electoral Commission's majority report: why has the revision of electoral boundaries been anticipated by 12 months? Perusal of the report itself does not provide an answer to this question. This leads to the inevitable conclusion that somebody seems to be in a hurry. Given the subject matter, it is pretty obvious that this hurry inevitably concerns the basic function of the Electoral Commission. Apparently, the attention of some members of the Commission has been drawn that they need to be prepared, at a moment's notice, for a possible early general election. Whether we will have an anticipated general election or not is still too early to say. It is however very clear that the option is being actively considered.

The second consideration of relevance to the electoral boundaries' revision is that in an electoral race between two political parties, the electoral boundaries, (past, present and future) are for all intents and purposes irrelevant. This is due to the fact that the constitutional adjustment mechanism kicks in to restore proportionality should the electoral boundaries result in a perverse result, as they unfortunately do on a regular basis.

The problem however is that should a third political voice makes it to Parliament, even winning just one electoral seat, the Constitutional adjustor for proportionality is not activated except for the political party which attains the 50 per cent plus one vote threshold.

The clinical precision of the electoral boundary adjustments most clearly has this potential scenario in mind. The boundary adjustments proposed in the electoral commission majority report are few, but they are targeted to have a maximum impact through the splitting of a number of localities and consequently diluting the power of the voters.

This can happen due to the fact that our electoral system rations proportionality and reserves it to the PLPN who have systematically ensured that others have a multitude of hurdles to overcome in order to be able to make it to Parliament.

It is for this specific reason that ADPD-The Green Party is currently in Court contesting the validity of parts of our electoral process due to their discriminatory characteristics. The case, currently being considered before the Constitutional Court, is slowly heading towards a final decision on the preliminary pleas. Hopefully in the not-too-distant future the Courts may be in a position to enter into the specific merits of the case.

There is no other option to consider the issues relative to our flawed electoral system, as Parliament has unfortunately repeatedly failed to deliver electoral fairness. Continuously, Parliament has resolved to support discrimination. This suits the political parties currently  in Parliament. They have a vested interest in the discriminatory status quo.

An architect and civil engineer, the author is a former Chairperson of ADPD-The Green Party in Malta.  [email protected] ,   http://carmelcacopardo.wordpress.com