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Dr Harry Vassallo explains why in the upcoming EU parliamentary elections there will be no wasted votes, and how six percent of the vote could elect a Green MEP
At every Maltese election one sixth of the votes would seem to be ‘wasted.’ The quota is established by dividing the number of votes cast by the number of seats plus one. In national elections each district elects 5 members to parliament so the quota is one sixth of the votes cast. The system as presently operated with 13 districts of 5 seats each produces a threshold of 16.6 percent.
Not everything is as it seems. At every election several MPs are elected without achieving the necessary quota. This is doubly irritating for Greens who at almost every election since 1992 have polled more votes than any single quota but never on a single district. Time and again candidates from other parties have gone to parliament with fewer votes than the Greens could rightfully claim. In the June elections all Green votes will come together for the first time.
The system wastage is actually more than a quota, more than a sixth of the vote. In casting our vote we do not choose a single candidate but number our choices in order of preference: 1, 2, 3 etc. Very few voters go through the whole list.
Most vote for a single party. Very few voters exercise their legal right to list their preferences across party lines. Many voters do not vote for all the candidates on their party’s list let alone vote for the other parties’ candidates. More votes wasted.
As the election proceeds, some candidates achieve a quota and are elected while their surplus votes are redistributed according to voter preferences among the remaining candidates. Surplus votes are ‘inherited’ if the next preferences include candidates who are still in the running.
If there are no further preferences expressed or only for candidates which have been elected or eliminated being those with the least number of votes in any given count, that vote stops traveling among the candidates. This attrition of votes leaves the last candidates in the running without enough votes between them to collate the established quota.
The more candidates in the race, the greater the number of votes that fall by the wayside. In this way the threshold or quota for the fifth candidate elected in some districts is significantly less than that for the four elected previously.
In the European parliament elections there is no government at stake. It is a complete irrelevance except to fanatics which party gains an absolute or relative majority of the vote. All the legal embroidery and popular panic about the No 1 vote is likewise an irrelevance in this election.
Challenging the status quo in Malta and taking on the propaganda machinery of two long established political parties is no easy task. Greens do not worry about relative or absolute majorities, our target is representation, not absolute power.
With just 6 percent of the vote on the first count Arnold Cassola can look forward to representing the Maltese Greens in the EP. Assuming that the remaining candidates of the other parties have the same amount of votes or less between them, it is probable that the election will play out in favour of the Greens.
Nationalists and Labourites do not express any preferences for one another’s candidates. Both sides can express preferences for a Green candidate. In the fight for the fifth seat Greens can expect to make gains while both their rivals suffer slow erosions. An original 6 percent level of No 1 votes will slowly rise, either getting to the 16.6 percent level or electing the Green candidate as the last electable candidate with less than a quota. All the Green candidates elected in the 2003 Local Council elections gained their seats in this way.
Clearly an original high level of No 1 votes for the Green candidate would make his election certain. Our poll at the last local council elections averaged 6.1 percent. Given the current political situation, the absence of pressure on voters not choosing a government and the proven competence of the Green candidate, we can look forward to a better than ever result in June. At 8 percent it is highly unlikely that a Green candidate could suffer a serious challenge.
There is no question of a Green vote being a wasted vote. The chances of a Green candidate being elected in the June elections are very good. Anybody wanting to take out insurance on his or her vote has only to express later preferences to make sure that the vote will be inherited.
Ironically the only ‘wasted’ votes in this election would be those that would elect a third candidate for any of the other parties. It is highly probable that both the PN and the MLP will gain two seats each in the election. They will each certainly gain representation in one of two political families in the European Parliament: the PPE and the PSE. A third seat for either of them adds nothing more.
Only the election of the Green candidate would give Malta an additional presence in a third political family in the European parliament. It would also be a more valuable presence since the smaller Green Group is more often in a position to swing the balance on contested issues. As in Malta the PPE and the PSE cancel one another out with monotonous regularity whenever an issue comes to a vote.
It is the small parties between them which are left to decide. Malta, already enjoying a disproportionately large (in relation to population) representation in the EP, would add significantly to its influence by gaining representation in the influential Green Group. It is nothing to sneeze at.
A Green success in the EP elections will not change the balance of power in Malta but will be a very strong signal to the other two parties that the electorate is ripe for change. Shaking up the national political scenario is at least as important as the matter of gaining competent representation in a crucial political grouping in the EP. Greens can be the voice of all those in this country who have had enough of the ruinously extravagant zero sum politics we have all suffered for far too long. None of us have ever had a better chance to make things clear.
Dr. Vassallo is Chairperson of Alternattiva Demnokratika
– The Green Party
www.alternattiva.org.mt
hcvassallo@kemmunet.net.mt
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