Apparently Daphne’s numeracy skills are no match for her writing skills! I would really appreciate it, if she could find the time to explain the logical arguments (assuming that they do exist) which led her into stating that Alternattiva Demokratika’s vote has shrunk to an all-time low, when commenting about the results of the local council elections held on 11 March (TMID, 16 March).

For the record, AD polled 10.3 per cent of the first count votes in Sliema, 3.7 per cent of the first count votes in Birkirkara, 5.3 per cent of the first count votes in Lija, 2.2 per cent of the first count votes in Zabbar.

This means that overall AD polled 5.1 per cent of the first count votes cast in these four localities. In 2003 AD polled 5.18 per cent of the first count votes cast in the same localities, i.e. a marginal decrease of 0.08 per cent. This analysis does not include the fact that AD has, for the first time, elected a local councillor in a Gozitan Locality (Sannat) with 11.2 per cent of the first count votes!

Calculating AD’s total percentage over the 23 localities in which the elections were held makes absolutely no mathematical sense, since it is based on the assumption that AD’s support in those localities in which it did not field any candidates is zero! I doubt that there has ever been a party contesting an election and getting zero first count votes!

People like Daphne would like to depict a different reality and will go to the extremes of twisting the laws of mathematics (which are not subject to interpretation) in order to belittle AD’s performance.

This shows that these people think that they can regain any of the voters the PN has lost to AD just by playing around with numbers. Apparently the Sliema and Sannat local elections together with the European Elections have not taught them any lessons!

Mark Scerri

Attard