We had been used to having very high turnouts in elections.

Except for one time in 1966, since Independence Malta always exceeded the 90% line in terms of voter participation. Between 1976 and 2003, we even got near or exceeded the 95% threshold, and remained in the 92-93% region since then.

So it did come as a surprise, perhaps a shock, that this time round the percentage of people who turned up to cast their vote fell to 85%.

From a total of 355,075 eligible voters, 304,050 exercised their right to vote. And nearly 10,000 of them invalidated their vote.

In a nutshell, one in every seven voters did not bother to collect the voting document, or else did not make use of it, or went to the polling booth to cast a vote which did not count. Roughly, that amounts to two whole electoral districts. And it happened across the board, both on districts traditionally leaning towards Labour, and others which normally favour the Nationalist Party.

It is not a small number, and the parties would do well to listen to what these non-voters are saying. Theirs is not negligence; it is also a vote, one against the system, one against both sides of the political spectrum which ended up with seats in the House of Representatives, one against the rest of the parties and independent candidates who contested the election.

We do not have faith in you, is the message that these voters are sending.

We do not have faith in a party which has been in power for nine years, and which has been involved in a long string of scandals, some of which have embarrassed Malta on the international stage.

We do not have faith in a party that is fragmented and is still unable to bring itself to be perceived as a valid alternative in spite of spending nine years on the opposition benches.

We do not have faith in third parties which are too weak and have too little credibility to be given the chance to sit in Parliament.

In other words, they have given up.

It is of course too early to say whether this is a just a one-off, or a sign of things to come. We will know more in the years to come as more elections take place.

The next test will be the European Parliament elections in 2024. In such elections, turnout is usually lower than that of general elections; if in 2024 the numbers will be even lower than what they normally are in EP elections, then it would be clear that a trend would have started to be formed.

The political parties and the system in general cannot ignore the voice of these people who chose not to use the only weapon they have in the democratic system we endorse.

Both the Prime Minister and the Opposition Leader have said that they have taken notice of the high number of people who did not vote.

At least, it seems that the message has been received.

We will soon know whether it has been understood.