Azzjoni Nazzjonali (AN) leader Josie Muscat yesterday described the constitutional amendments on the electoral system as “shameful”, but said he was confident that people will eventually come to their senses and allow candidates from the smaller parties to also represent them in Parliament.
Contacted by The Malta Independent yesterday, a day after Parliament unanimously approved the constitutional amendments, Dr Muscat said the two major parties have simply perpetuated their position in the two-party system.
“These are shameful amendments, particularly when you consider that should AN obtain 16 per cent of the votes in all districts, they will still not be represented in Parliament. Is this the democracy we fought for?” said Dr Muscat, adding he was confident people will still show their trust in his recently established party.
As expected, on the other hand, both the Labour Party and the PN, are happy with the approved amendments.
When contacted, Labour deputy leader Michael Falzon said the amendments were a positive step forward, while PN secretary general Joe Saliba said the amendments reflected substantial improvements to the system.
Dr Falzon said the main positive points were the fact that Gozo will, from now on, be considered as one electoral district.
“The Gozo issue has been solved and will now be considered as a district in itself when it comes to the elections,” he said.
Moreover, said Dr Falzon, the amendments also remove any form of uncertainty as regards the other electoral districts.
Mr Saliba agreed, saying the good thing about the amendments was that no matter how the districts were organised, it would not affect who will govern and the number of seats in Parliament.
Dr Falzon referred to the important issue of proportionality, by means of which the number of seats obtained by each of the two parties currently represented in Parliament will reflect the number of first-count votes obtained.
As for other positive amendments, Mr Saliba spoke about better facilities for blind people and the fact that their privacy will be respected when they cast their vote.
The new system for blind people will include both a Braille ballot sheet, as well as a recording system, said Mr Saliba.
Moreover, people who would be serving a suspended sentence at election time will now be allowed to vote, he said.
As regards an election threshold, which the two major parties had discussed with Alternattiva Demokratika (AD) at an early stage of the process leading to the constitutional amendments, Mr Saliba said that had a threshold been adopted, proportionality would not have been possible.
AD had proposed that should one party garner more than 50 per cent of the votes then, since that same party is guaranteed a majority of parliamentary seats, no governability issue would arise.
AD had proposed that in such circumstances (when one party is guaranteed governability) the threshold should be low.
However, no agreement had been reached on a national threshold and the two major parties had carried on with discussions alone and therefore in a manner that suited them the most.
When asked whether the amendments were discriminatory against the smaller parties, Mr Saliba said there were times when five parties were represented in Parliament and since the amendments would improve the system, he said he did not believe the smaller parties should be affected negatively.
AD party leader Harry Vassallo could not be reached to comment on the issue yesterday.