One third of the population will be asked to vote in today’s local council elections.

The country has got used to these yearly polls. For the past 12 years, elections for local councils have been held every year. They are normally held on the second Saturday of March although this has not always been so. Last year, for example, the elections were postponed until June to coincide with the European Parliament elections.

In all, in today’s election there will be 240 candidates vying for the 139 seats.

These are not general elections, but they give the political parties taking part a good indication of what the people are feeling. The vote of one third of the population – in 21 localities, four of them in Gozo – is not an overall picture, and on occasions one party is favoured against the other while, on others, the situation is reversed.

Yet, on the whole, parties will be able to understand more where they stand in the prevailing situation.

Of course, a local council election cannot be compared to a general election in terms of importance. A general election determines who will govern the country for five years, while a local council election elects locality representatives for three years.

Political parties look at local council elections as trials as they prepare themselves for the general election. They draw comparisons, especially with similar elections held in the same localities three years earlier, to check whether improvements were registered or whether support has dwindled.

But they also compare these polls with what took place in the general elections although this comparison is limited because, as explained earlier, only one third of the population is asked to cast his or her preference.

But, apart from just working on results, local council elections will also help the parties organise their internal machinery with a view to tuning it up for the general election. Campaigns for local council elections are not as assiduous as those for a general election, but they do take their toll too.

Added to this, the parties have to see that the part of their machine that is responsible for the running of an election is well-oiled for a local election as it gears up for the more important event at the end of this legislature. Today’s local council election will, all in all, be another exercise in this regard, although one must add that there will be more before the next election day.

Today, voters in the 21 localities where elections will take place have the chance to express their opinion about what has been going on in their locality and, by so doing, also pass on their message to all the political parties taking part. They will have the democratic right to choose their representatives in their locality in the hope that this will continue to be taken care of in the best way possible.