Green vote strengthens Malta’s voice in EP – Cassola
David Darmanin
Alternattiva Demokratika candidates for the European Parliament Arnold Cassola and Yvonne Aquieros Ebejer were upbeat yesterday at a press conference to publicise the Europe-wide ‘Predict09’ survey that puts the Greens at 6.3% of the vote for 6 June- up from 1.9% in the first edition of the survey.
“It is true that polls are what they are, but scientific surveys may provide good indications,” AD chairman and MEP candidate Arnold Cassola said.
“On 6 June, we will be voting to elect five seats now and a sixth one in January – depending on what comes out of the Lisbon Treaty Irish referendum,” he added. “We envisage the sixth seat being ours because four seats are elected with full quota and the fifth and the sixth are elected from the leftovers.”
In 2004 Cassola was the sixth in line to be elected after garnering 9.4% of the vote as the only Green candidate.
“We want to be elected not only out of selfishness, but also because it is in the national interest to have more than two parties represented in Europe,” he argued. “Malta is the only EU member state to be represented by just two parties in the European Parliament. This is neither the case with Liechtenstein nor with Monaco. We want the PN elected so they can influence the PPE, we want the PL elected so that they can influence the Socialist group, and we want to be elected because we can influence the 50 Greens elected from other member states.”
Appealing to protest voters, Cassola said that “the biggest message disillusioned voters can deliver is by electing a third party after 47 years of bi-partisan representation in Malta. Not using a vote will not shock the system as much as electing a third party,” he said.
Concluding his speech, Cassola cracked up a group of American bystanders saying: “As Obama said – yes we can… and let’s go for it.”
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