Migrating votes

It was of little surprise yesterday that both the main political leaders claimed victory in the local council elections. After all, both had cause to celebrate, just as both had cause to be dismayed.

Although the Prime Minister said he would have been happy with a 50 per cent plus one vote victory, that was clearly not the whole truth, nor was it the case.

And while the Opposition leader can take solace in the fact that his party has managed to reduce the gap from 17 per cent in the 2012 local council elections to nine per cent in the same localities this year, he had undoubtedly hoped for better.

All things told, while the government took the local council elections, it was a modest victory.

At the time of writing, local council first count votes were still being tallied but it was already clear that the Opposition had managed to reclaim at least some of the councils where it had lost its control.

The narrowing of the gap this time around is also more indicative when one considers the high proportion of traditionally Labour councils in this particular election, the Labour’s proven ability to bring out the vote, as well as Labour’s comparatively heavy campaigning over recent weeks.

But the question remains as to whether, after these midterm election, the Opposition will manage to close the enormous general election gap witnessed in the last general election. It has some two-and-a half years in which to do so. Whatever the case, with the parties drawing ever closer in the 2018 general election stakes, there are interesting times ahead.

Addressing a press conference yesterday the Leader of the Opposition claimed that the Prime Minister is no longer ‘invincible’ and that his support is gradually dwindling. While it is patently undeniable that Labour has lost votes this time around and that the Nationalist Party appears to be on the upswing, nothing, absolutely nothing can be discounted. As such, he would do well not to underestimate the power of incumbency and not count those particular chickens before they hatch.

Migrating birds

The results of last week’s referendum to abolish spring hunting, as disappointing as it was for some, shows that the country’s environmental lobby is truly a force to be reckoned with.

Environmental NGOs have held protests about the state of the environment, surveys were also carried out, but when it came down to the ultimate litmus test as provided by a national poll, 49 per cent of the electorate voted a resounding ‘No’ to spring hunting.

Forty-nine per cent of the electorate did so despite the fact that both the Prime Minister as well as the Opposition leader, in varying degrees, had declared their intention to vote ‘Yes’. That means that 49 per cent of the population last week placed the environment above the dictates of their political leaders.

Of course, neither leader dictated how their followers should vote, and both had made it clear that they had no intention of campaigning. Neither did, technically speaking. First the Prime Minister had made his stance clear, followed by the Opposition leader who had done so possibly only because he had helped negotiate Malta’s derogation from the Birds Directive in the lead up to the country’s EU accession.

The Prime Minister, however, reneged on his word to stay out of the campaign and plugged the Yes vote on a number of occasions.

Last week’s referendum could and should serve as a launching pad for a new environmental movement, a movement which holds the potential to place the environment on the national political agenda more than it ever has been before.

The environment is now at the forefront of the national discourse perhaps more than it has ever been in the past.

Overall, the country’s environmental lobby has grown by leaps and bounds in recent years, and the government, and the Opposition for that matter, will ignore this growing movement at their peril.

The main political parties would do well to take note of what the environmentalist are saying. There was a time when their numbers were negligible when it came to the grand electoral stakes, but those times are now behind us.

BirdLife Malta yesterday urged the Maltese to ‘seize the moment’ to help the referendum momentum continue. We could not agree more. In today’s issue BirdLife is distributing membership forms. We urge those who are not members to sign up to their ranks, or to the ranks of other environmental organisation. Those with the environment at heart need to stand up and make their voices heard loud and clear.

Migrating masses

And while we here in Malta have been concerned with migrating votes and migrating birds, we appear to have grown comfortably numb, as the Prime Minister suggested this week, to the thousands of deaths taking place in our waters.

With yet another migrant tragedy unfolding in waters around Malta, this time claiming some 400 lives, the question once again begs: how many more must die before Europe takes real, effective action?

All told, it is unfathomable how many thousands of people are losing their lives every year to the treacherous waters of the Mediterranean Sea, right here on Malta’s very own doorstep, and still no tangible action by the European Union has been forthcoming.

This continuous human tragedy is, as the Prime Minister once accurately put it, literally turning the Mediterranean into a cemetery.

This is not about burden sharing or taking Malta’s already-settled refugees off this island’s hands for resettlement elsewhere in the bloc. This is not a cry for resources to deal with the ‘problem’. This is, pure and simple, about saving the lives of those driven to seek safety in Europe; it is about the sanctity of life. It is about humanity and the morals that Europe prides itself on, no more and no less.

Have we as Maltese and Europeans become so desensitised to the plight of these people? After all the years of these desperate individuals seeking entry to Europe – in so many ways their perceived Promised Land – after fleeing war, famine and persecution in their home countries, and with so many losing their lives in the process, it is unfathomable how Europe as a whole has not risen up to face this humanitarian crisis.

Europe must collectively be held responsible for those deaths because of its inaction on the migration front. The EU must commit itself to addressing this perpetual humanitarian crisis and say, once and for all, that “enough is enough”.