There are few subjects on which the government and the opposition agree. One of them is that there is a need for the electoral system to be changed in such a way as to reduce the anomalies that crop up in each and every general election.

Ever since the perverse result of the 1981 election – when the Labour Party gained more seats in Parliament in spite of picking up fewer votes, and held on to power during what turned out to be the most difficult political period of Maltese recent history – efforts have been made to find a solution.

The changes made just before the 1987 election to allow the party winning the absolute majority of votes to be elected to government, with the resulting adding of parliamentary seats to give a parliamentary majority, has helped to improve matters as, at least, there is a guarantee that the party obtaining 50 per cent plus one of the votes will run the country.

But this does not mean that all the problems were resolved as there are still too many discrepancies in Malta’s electoral system. What happened in 1996, for example, gave the Malta Labour Party a one-seat parliamentary majority when, proportionately, their victory was bigger. As it happened, that single-seat majority was not enough to see Labour through the five years of the legislature, and the government collapsed 22 months after being elected.

As things stand now, there is still a chance that a party which gets fewer votes is elected to government – especially, but not only, if a third party is represented in Parliament – just because the way electoral districts are drawn up could give it the advantage of electing more candidates.

Malta cannot afford to be thrown into chaos once again, and therefore the two major political parties must come up with a solution which is satisfactory to both and which at the same time will limit, if not eliminate, the possibility of a result that does not reflect the way votes were cast.

Judging by what Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi and opposition leader Alfred Sant said in Parliament last Monday, it seems that the two parties have the political will to reach a solution. What matters now is that they sit down together and discuss the whole system through in a bid to find an agreement.

While it is understandable that each party will try, as much as possible, to gain even the slightest advantage, both sides should keep in mind that ultimately they should be working in the national interest. The stability of Malta as a country, especially now that the nation is trying hard to emerge from years of difficulty, is more important than anything else.

The principle of proportionality – which means that parties obtain a number of seats to reflect the number of first count votes they obtained – should be at the centre of the discussions to be held between the two parties. As much as possible, there should be no way that, if party A wins an election by 12,000 votes, it will get a five-seat majority in Parliament, but if it is party B that wins the same election by the same number of votes, it will only have one extra seat.

This sort of thing has happened in the past and the two parties should do their utmost to see that it is not repeated.

The two parties have two reports in front of them, one submitted by the Electoral Commission with which the Nationalist Party is in disagreement, and the other submitted by a minority group within the commission which was itself against the recommendations, and which the Malta Labour Party says is not acceptable.

This shows that, so far, the two sides are still seeking their own interests. With some effort, and a give and take attitude, a compromise can be reached in the national interest.