An emotional Alternattiva Demokratika (AD) chairperson Harry Vassallo told the party’s Annual General Meeting yesterday morning that the party was “at the end of an era”.
“When we meet next year there will be new people in the party, and we will be a party in Parliament,” he said to the applause of the party activists present.
He said that the seed planted by the party’s founders 18 years ago had now yielded its fruit and was growing into a strong tree.
Present for the AD annual general meeting was former Nationalist Party (PN) candidate Carmel Cacopardo, who fell out of favour with the PN, with the result that his term as MEPA Investigating Officer was not renewed after it expired in April.
Cacopardo has recently become a member of the Green Party, and the AGM was his first public occasion where he attended a party activity.
Vassallo said that in order for the party to get elected to Parliament, it had to be in touch with the needs of the electorate. “In those localities where we made a door-to-door campaign, we obtained up to 19 per cent of the vote. This proves that Alternattiva can go well beyond the glass ceiling,” he insisted.
“In Munxar we did not elect a councillor for a mere two votes. Imagine if we do not elect a candidate to Parliament for solely two votes,” Vassallo warned the party activists.
He explained that in order for the party to elect candidates to the national Parliament and to the European Parliament, it first has to address the concerns of the voters and offer effective solutions to their problems.
To drive its message home to the electorate, the party started its door-to-door campaign in May.
Alternattiva is aiming to obtain around 2,500 first-count votes in each electoral district.
He said that this was not beyond the party’s reach, as in the European Parliament elections – the last nationwide contest until now held in 2004 – AD candidate Arnold Cassola obtained 23,000 first count votes, totalling nine per cent of all first count preferences. “We can continue from where we had left then,” Vassallo said.
“If Green candidates are elected to Parliament, there will be a significant shift in the country’s political scene.”
Vassallo said that the agreement reached between the two main parties represented in Parliament about proportionality of votes was “a black certificate” of their democratic credentials.
“It creates two classes of voters – voters whose votes will be carefully evaluated in terms proportionality, and voters whose votes will not count at all,” Vassallo lamented.
However, he said this will not affect AD’s electoral strategy as the ultimate electoral threshold of 16 per cent of votes on a district basis remains the same.
During the annual general meeting, party delegates also approved a document outlining the party’s policies on various issues, such as the family, mobility and transport, energy, planning and the environment, housing and property, Gozo, and foreign policy.

czahra@mediatoday.com.mt