The government’s proposed solution to the dilemma facing Malta’s Olympic athletes ahead of the European election next June, has been to create two elections days instead of one – May 31 and June 6 – in a manoeuvre which will enable both parties to fly in more voters from overseas.
Political observers have commented that this may well prove a crucial electoral advantage to the Nationalist Party, which is understood to rely far more extensively on voters flying in from abroad than the Malta Labour Party – especially those Maltese citizens employed with European institutions in Brussels and elsewhere.
Moreover the wording of the proposal will enable anyone – and not just members of the Malta Olympic team – to vote a week ahead of polling day, without the need to show any proof that he or she will be away from the island on the official polling day of June 6. The proposed amendment to the electoral law was tabled in parliament this week in response to a controversy involving Malta’s team for the Small Nations Olympics, and is understood to have been piloted by PN secretary general Paul Borg Olivier, although party insiders maintain that Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi remains unconvinced.
The amendment allows for anyone “who declares on oath before the Electoral Commission that he will not be in Malta on the day of the election, shall be entitled to cast his vote… between 7 am and 10 pm seven days before polling day.”
Since the amendment does not require voters to present their airline ticket as proof that they will not be in Malta on polling day, effectively anyone can avail of the initiative. This in turn creates a much longer window of opportunity to arrange special flights for voters from overseas, of the kind that are routinely organised by both political parties at general elections.
There is little doubt this measure will greatly benefit the Nationalist party – the matter of voters flown in from abroad was in fact a concern for the Labour party in its electoral defeat report of 2008, which noted how the PN’s push for overseas voters had tilted the general vote in its favour to secure its hairline victory.
According to the commission that had studied Labour’s 2008 electoral defeat, the party’s electoral office had been lackadaisical about identifying some 32,000 new voters in the election, and monitoring whether overseas voters were eligible to vote or not.
The party did not even manage to book Air Malta flights to fly in voters (unlike the PN’s own office Elcom) or to arrange flights for workers based in Dubai to come and vote.
The commission estimated that the shortcomings at the electoral office, including the exercise to bring overseas voters down to vote, cost Labour 7,000 votes.
The national airline has in the past subsidised airfares for Maltese voters abroad to vote in the general and European Parliament elections.
The rush for air flights may be slightly eased now since political parties can coordinate separate visits for the two polling days.
In 2008, over 3,000 Maltese citizens living abroad were eligible to vote in the March general elections with over 1,200 having booked their seat by February.
Labour leader Jospeh Muscat will be addressing parliament ttoday on the subject of the government’s proposals, but when contacted PL secretary general Jason Micallef declined to divulge the Labour Party’s counter-proposals.
But deputy leader for parliamentary affairs Anglu Farrugia yesterday slammed the “typical arrogance” of the Nationalist government in imposing its own views without debate.
“The Nationalist government, which has been in power for years, continues to impose its own decisions without consultation with anyone: this time without even allowing for any free discussion to take place in the select committee,” he said yesterday. “As usual they have by-passed the entire democratic process, in the typical arrogant way we have come to expect from the government these days.”
Attempts to contact PN secretary-general Paul Borg Olivier yesterday evening proved futile.
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