About one-third of the adult population will be asked today to vote in the local council elections.

Since local councils were introduced in late 1993, on a yearly basis the country has been able to gauge the people’s feelings in these local polls. Elections are normally held on the second Saturday of March, although there have been occasions in the past when they were linked to other national polls, like in 2004 when they were moved to June to coincide with the European Parliament election.

This happens to be the 12th round of local council elections to take place in Malta. The first round was held over a six-month period starting in November 1993 and ending in May 1994.

At that juncture, some local councils had a two-year term and, after 1995 was skipped, elections have been held every year since 1996.

In all, 282 candidates will be contesting today’s election in 23 localities, three of which are in Gozo.

The participation of women has risen to 22 per cent from the 19 per cent registered last year.

The number of eligible voters is 124,766, although it is already known that 8,804 of these will not be voting because their voting document had not been collected by last Thursday at

midnight.

These are not general elections, and the vote in one-third of the islands does not give an overall picture of the situation in the country. But the political parties taking part will be able to take stock of the situation once they know the results, expected in the early hours of Sunday.

Local elections cannot be compared to a national poll, which is now only two years away. A general election determines which party will run the country in the following five years, while a local election elects councillors that will deal with locality matters for three years.

In a way, local council elections can be used by political parties as trials for the national poll. Comparisons may be drawn with what happened three years before to check whether support increased or dwindled. They may even compare results with general elections, although in this case the comparison is limited because only one-third of the population has the chance to vote.

Local elections can also serve the parties well as they prepare for the general election in two years’ time. The organisation of the parties’ internal machinery is put in motion for the local council elections and the parties can then see for themselves where things are running smoothly and what could be adjusted, in time, for the general election.

This goes for both the election campaigns that the parties hold in the run-up for the local election as well as the way the party organisation functions when the voting starts and, later, when the counting of votes is taking place.

Of course, campaigns for local council elections are limited when compared to those for a general election and, likewise, the amount of people involved in the before-and-after the vote is also reduced.

Yet the parties could take this election as an exercise in view of what will take place at the end of this legislature.

Today, voters in the 23 localities where elections will take place have the chance to give their preferences and elect their representatives on their local council. It is also a chance for them to pass on their message to all political parties taking part.

By electing their councillors, the voters will be selecting the people who they think have the best credentials to take care of their town or village.