That there is a section of the population in Malta which is liberal is now a fact.

The numbers, it seems, are larger than even the traditional political parties had bargained for. The question on everyone’s lips therefore is why haven’t these liberals been voting for Alternattiva Demokratika? This, of course, is also what AD keeps asking itself, since it is the only third party that has somehow managed to survive the cutthroat ruthlessness of the Maltese political scene that remains firmly in the grip of the heavyweights.

I can understand AD’s frustration at the moment. Here they are, the only party which has been consistent about divorce from the day it was just a fledgling lobby group in 1989. And yet, although the divorce referendum was won by the Yes vote through AD’s efforts as well, the Greens seem destined to remain on the sidelines, hoping for newspaper coverage, and battling for airtime every chance they get.

Why don’t people consider AD as a viable option when they come to vote in a national election? I have been asking people this question over this past week, and the answer has been invariably the same – they don’t have a chance of getting elected, so it will be a ‘wasted’ vote. When they hear this, AD activists understandably hold their heads in despair. The wasted vote myth is one which has been doing the rounds every since AD looked alarmingly like it was going to rock the boat in the 2003 election immediately following the successful Yes vote in the EU referendum campaign.

That was then

AD, which was enjoying an all-time high of popular support, wanted to form an electoral alliance with PN but the Prime Minister at the time, Eddie Fenech Adami, made it clear he was not having any of that. Instead, the offer he placed on the table was that, in exchange for not contesting at all, AD would be offered Speaker of the House. This offer was firmly turned down by AD. Recalling the events in a later interview, Harry Vassallo was quoted as saying, “we wanted to be represented in our country’s Parliament with the votes of the electorate as we deserve”.

In response to AD’s campaign for people to give them their second preference after voting number one for the PN with the slogan “It-2 jghodd ukoll” (The number two vote counts as well), the PN went into overdrive. Voting No 2 for AD would mean that Labour would win by default, Eddie bellowed to the masses gathered below him at that fateful meeting in Luxol. I personally received text messages ‘warning’ me of this same possibility. The masses obeyed, as they used to back then, and AD suffered a humiliating defeat, realising too late that while they had helped the PN win the EU Yes vote, the PN was not about to allow AD to set foot in Parliament.

Obviously, neither the Labour Party nor the Nationalist Party really wants a pesky AD Member of Parliament upsetting their cosy set-up − why would they? Except for when Arnold Cassola almost got elected in the 2004 MEP elections, AD has never stood a chance since then.

This is now

Fast forward to 2011 and here we are once again in what must seem like a bitter déjà vu for the small party which has survived against all odds. The latest polls show AD only garnering a measly 1.1 per cent.

And yet, today more than ever, everywhere I go I hear people moaning about how the PN now disgusts them and how voting Labour is unthinkable, while invariably ending their gripe with that unmistakeable Sliema drawl, “maaaa, but there’s no real alternative eyyy?”

Actually there is, right under your nose; even its very name is screaming out at you that it’s an alternative. I find it hard to relate to those who claim they are fed up to their back teeth with both parties, and are constantly pining for a change, but then spend their time plaintively looking around and wailing that there is no other choice. So something tells me that they are not really that serious about wanting real change because let’s face it, AD is not exactly in a position to dole out favours, or promise people cushy jobs, or appoint completely unsuitable people to boards and chairmanships in exchange for a vote.

Voters in Malta have been conditioned for decades to vote in exchange for getting something in return. Patronage, as Jeremy Boissevain revealed as long ago as 1965, makes up the very bricks and mortars of this island society. I have no doubt that it will remain like this at least in my lifetime, because there is too much at stake. Many of our parliamentarians, as we have found out this week, barely take their parliamentary role seriously enough to attend the sittings, and yet we are expected to believe that those who run for office do it because they are all selfless martyrs ready to sacrifice their very lives for their country.

So, who to vote for?

I never go around telling people how they should vote, because it’s none of my business. Similarly, I don’t believe in insulting supporters of one party or another, or portraying one group as being endowed with the gift of extraordinary intelligence, and the other as one step removed from Neanderthals. Frankly, if Labour voters have sometimes elected odd, incompetent types, the recent gaffes and ridiculous statements by Nationalist MPs do not reflect too well either.

I can understand those who use their vote as a protest, adamantly staying at home, cutting up their vote in pretty little shapes, or actually going to cast their vote after invalidating it with a suitable expletive. This is democracy in practice, and your vote is your one sign of autonomy in this land where your every move is dictated to by those in the seat of power.

The one argument I fail to grasp, however, is by those who say that there is no point in voting Alternattiva because they won’t get elected anyway, so one might as well stay at home. Talk about a Catch 22. It reminds me of those who were going to stay at home during the divorce referendum “because it won’t pass anyway”. Well, if everyone had stayed at home, true, it would not have had a chance in hell. Thankfully, enough people had faith in the old adage, ‘every vote counts’. I’m still meeting people who tell me that they didn’t vote because they did not see the point, and are flabbergasted (and secretly pleased) that the ‘Yes’ passed. I have to be polite and bite my tongue because what I really feel like saying is, “well, yes it passed but no thanks to you.”

You cannot expect change to happen if you’re always expecting the other person to make the first step.

As I wrote last week, with more and more people becoming disillusioned with the politicians we have around us, getting out the vote will be the true test for all parties in 2013. Those who stay at home because they’ve given up on Maltese politics ever changing are basically washing their hands of the whole process and really do not care either way who runs the country. It’s a free country, of course, but the way I see it, if ever there was a ‘wasted’ vote, then it’s that one.

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