James Debono
Proposing the enfranchisement of 16 and 17-year-olds may have enabled Labour leader Joseph Muscat take away the spotlight off his party’s troubles, and renew his appeal to the younger voters who snubbed Labour in March.
Back in 1947, Labour delegates convinced the National Assembly to grant full voting rights women the right to vote. In 1976 it was an MLP government which reduced the voting age from 21 to 18.
Taking a cue from Alternattiva Demokratika’s electoral manifesto and keeping in line with his party’s democratic traditions, Muscat now wants to enfranchise 16 and 17-year-olds.
Ironically it was the army of new voters which apparently cost Labour the election in March. For despite a 5-8% swing from the PN to the MLP registered in all pre-electoral surveys, the PN scraped through by winning the vast majority of new voters.
At 34, Muscat seems determined to make Labour youth-friendly. What better way than to follow the latest European trend of extending voting rights to 16 and 17-year-olds?
If Muscat’s proposal is accepted Malta would only be the second EU member to grant full voting rights to 16-year-olds in national elections, although many other European countries are already experimenting with giving young people a greater voice in decision-making.
16 and 17-year-olds already have the right to vote at state level in five German states. Slovenia, Bosnia and Serbia also allow 16-year-olds to vote if they are in employment.
In July 2007, Austria became the first EU member to adopt a voting age of 16 for all purposes. Ironically it was only in 1992 that Austria reduced the voting age from 19 to 18. Back then only the green party favoured lowering the voting age to sixteen. But 15 years later, all parties except the far-right had supported the enfranchisement of 16-year-olds.
As happened in Austria, Muscat wants the voting age to be first lowered at local level as a sort of testing ground. Back in 2005, 59% of the 16-18 age group voted in Vienna’s municipal elections, a turnout similar to that of any other age group.
When Hanover, in Germany, lowered its voting age to 16, turnout among the pre-18s was 56%, exceeding that of 18-25-year-olds (49%).

Why extend voting?
Lowering voting ages is also seen as a way to counterbalance Europe’s ageing population. The Danish Youth Council says “more young people have to vote in order to avoid a democratic imbalance as the populations in Europe is getting older and older.”
Even the UK is actively considering a reduction of voting age to 16 after the proposalswas defeated in the Commons by 434 against 36. In 2005 however, a private member’s bill by Lib-Dem MP Stephen Williams was defeated by a much narrower margin of 136 against 128 – an indication that public opinion is shifting in favour of younger voters.
Votes At 16, a group of political and charitable organisations supporting a reduction of the voting age to 16, was launched in 2003. It includes the Children’s Rights Alliance for England, the British Youth Council and Children’s Parliament in Scotland, and have written to party leaders asking them to promise to extend the franchise.
Louise King, of the Children’s Rights Alliance, argues that: “At 16 and 17, young people have considerable responsibilities and routinely make complex decisions but adult society does not consider them responsible enough to vote.”
Even British PM Gordon Brown now favours a lowering of the voting age provided it was made concurrently with effective citizenship education, with his forthcoming election manifesto backing extending the franchise.
But so far it is Latin America that leads the way.
The left-wing Sandinistas first lowered the voting age to 16 in 1984 after overthrowing the military dictatorship. Brazil followed in 1988, two years after the restoration of democracy in 1986. Bolivia’s President Evo Morales and Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez now also want to amend their countries’ constitution to lower the voting age to 16.
For once Malta could join the pioneers rather than wait for decades to follow established European or global trends.

Countries where 16-18 year-olds vote in national elections
Austria, Brazil, Cuba, Nicaragua

Countries where 16-18 year-olds vote only if employed
Slovenia, Serbia, Bosnia

Countries/regions where 16-18 year-olds vote in local elections
Philippines; Glarus (Switzerland); Lower Saxony,
Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, North Rhine Westphalia,
Saxony-Anhalt, Schleswig-Holstein (Germany); Norway;
Sweden (parish elections); Guernsey, Isle of Man, Jersey
(UK dependencies)