AD secretary-general hints at ‘radical decision’ yet to come
David Darmanin
Even prior to the start of the counting process yesterday evening, a quick glimpse at the stacks of sorted ballot sheets was enough to destroy the morale of AD officials.
A first sample counted a measly 2.8% first preference votes – a notch up from the 1.3% obtained in 2008 general elections but a far cry from the staggering 9.8% result obtained in 2004 EP elections.
“The morale is low,” said AD secretary-general Victor Galea at the quarters assigned to his party at the Naxxar counting hall yesterday afternoon. “The result was a shock to us because as much as we understand people who would not risk voting for a wider representation in the national parliament, we did not understand that this time round, the same fear also applied to the European Parliament.”
Asked about his expectations on the party’s response to this defeat, Galea said that “members will decide on the future and the setup of the party at an annual general meeting due in November”.
Probed on whether a radical change is due, Galea said: “Personally, I think more than a radical change we need to make a radical decision. The good thing is that we have enough time to reflect until November.”
AD must still draw a post-mortem to put its finger on what led to this utter defeat. But Galea’s analysis shows that the party’s message “was either not properly delivered or it was not the type of message that is attractive to the Maltese voter.”
“We propagated the idea of having a more widely represented European Parliament, as we believe it is in the national interest to have influence on more political groupings. The European Parliament is different to the national one. But regardless, the PN and PL campaign focused on obtaining an absolute majority, as is done in general elections. People responded to that feel, and in fact the votes we obtained are very comparable to those we obtained in general elections. It is amply clear that Malta remains polarised and bi-partisan.”
But surely, this alone does not justify a drop of more than three fourths of votes obtained five years ago.
“Whereas five years ago we garnered a lot of protest votes, this time around, many abstained while another part went to smaller parties,” he said.
Galea said the drop in support was not related to Labour’s victory five years ago, when Cassola garnered a sufficient number of Nationalist votes which however left him hanging in sixth place.
“No I don’t think people who voted Cassola five years ago voted PN this time around. This is a matter of the electoral system disadvantaging smaller parties,” he explained.
But what disadvantage? There was a national quota this time around – this surely makes it much easier for parties with few candidates on their list.
“Yes but we still have a block-vote culture, and that is part of the system. I have yet to see one of the bigger parties promoting the benefits of cross voting…”
But wasn’t PL doing exactly that in the eleventh hour? Wasn’t it encouraging its voters to give their last preferences to AD?
“No, that was an idea started off by Evarist Bartolo on Facebook but it was on a very small scale,” he replied.
“Until Saturday morning, people were still asking me whether cross voting would invalidate their votes,” Galea added.
“I think it is in the interest and remit of the electoral commission to educate the public on this very fact, but you know that the electoral commission is only represented by PL and PN. Mind you, I don’t want to sound defensive. We realise that the decision is sovereign.”
Were they confident until the first sample came out? “Yes, we were confident, especially after reading your polls,” he said, referring to exit polls published in MaltaToday yesterday indicating a 4% preference for Cassola.
“We thought our message was clear,” he repeated.
But the feel was different five years ago. AD was on a high. Cassola was discussed in columns, on blogs, in the press and was favoured among many first-time voters. They were by far less present and less discussed this time around.
“Five years ago I voted AD for the first time because PN’s mudslinging campaign attracted both my curiosity and my sympathy towards the party,” Galea said, agreeing.
“A lot of people then had a very similar motivation to mine. This time, not only has the PN completely ignored us but it made it a point not to send its representatives to discussion programmes on TV so that the Broadcasting Authority can quote partisan imbalance and impede the broadcasting of the debate. This was part of their strategy.”
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