The number is significant.

In the last three local elections held in 2005, 2006 and 2007, in three different electoral battlegrounds which taken together make up the whole country, a sizeable segment of the electorate chose not to cast their vote. In all, 108,108 citizens who over those years had the right to express their preferences chose to stay at home, rather than vote to elect their preferred councillor.

It is a sizeable proportion because it amounts to some 35.5 per cent of the electorate in this country – more than one-third of those eligible to vote.

The Malta Labour Party has won these last three elections handsomely (the MLP has actually won the last four, but the election held in 2004 is not being included in this equation because the localities where elections were held that year were the same ones where the polls were held on Saturday, and in 2004 those polls were linked with those for the European Parliament, which helped to attract a higher turnout).

Taking the last three local elections, the overall results show that the Malta Labour Party obtained 105,289 votes (53.55 per cent), while the PN mustered 85,686 votes (43.58 per cent) – representing a difference of some 20,000 (or 10 per cent), which is huge by Maltese standards. The rest of the votes – 3,726 (1.89 per cent) and 1,883 (0.95 per cent) – were taken up by Alternattiva Demokratika and independent candidates respectively.

But then those 108,108 people come into the picture. Those 35.5 per cent of the population who did not express their preferences will most likely be the ones who will determine the outcome of the next general election to be held late this year or early the next.

The big question is what will these people do with their vote. Are they mostly Nationalists, as the PN would have us believe that they are? Is there a good proportion of them who are Labour-inclined, and is this proportion enough to secure a victory for Labour? How many of them will vote AD and how many of them will keep away from the polling booths anyway?

It would not be erroneous to predict that many of these people will be casting their vote in the general election. Voter turnout at every local election held since 1993 has, understandably, been considerably lower than that for general elections, which remained over the 90 per cent mark throughout. It can therefore be reasonably assumed that the same thing will happen when Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi calls the next election.

Considering that national elections in Malta are often decided by the few thousand votes that shift the balance between the PN and MLP, the fact that we do not know which way a staggering 108,108 votes will go puts a big question mark on the outcome of the general election.

Dr Gonzi has said he is convinced the PN will win the next election, basing his argument on the fact that so many electors did not turn out to vote in the local elections. Dr Gonzi must think that the majority of these 108,108 people will vote PN, and that this majority will overturn the local election results into a PN victory. He has every right to that opinion, but no politician would say otherwise.

For his part, MLP leader Alfred Sant believes that the local election results are a reflection of what will happen at the national level. The MLP therefore thinks that the swing in Labour’s favour will be reflected there as well, and that if it is true that most of the non-voters at local elections are Nationalists, their majority will still not be big enough to return the PN to power for a third successive term.

We all have to wait and see. What is certain is that those 108,108 voters who abstained are the ones who will decide.