On Wednesday, on behalf of ADPD-The Green Party, together with party General Secretary Ralph Cassar I instituted constitutional proceedings relative to the election results just published.
The issue at stake is that the electoral system has, over the years been developed in the exclusive interest of the PLPN: milking more parliamentary seats for the PLPN and excluding the rest.
In a healthy democracy, all votes have an equal value: every vote counts. Unfortunately, in Malta, electoral legislation, by design, that is with the clear intention of Parliament, is discriminatory in favour of the PLPN, the political parties which have exclusively controlled Parliament since the 1966 general elections.
A vote cast for ADPD-The Green Party is equal in value to those cast in favour of the PLPN. Existing electoral legislation is discriminatory due to its giving weight to votes cast for the two parliamentary parties and ignoring those cast for others.
This is the result of two specific measures: one dealing with proportionality and the other dealing with gender balance. Both measures are designed to benefit the PLPN and discriminate against us, the third party, and others. The discrimination we are facing is an integral part of electoral legislation by design.
On Monday 28th March 2022 it was announced that the electoral result was adjusted through the addition of two MPs from the list of candidates presented by the PN. This addition is the result of a proportionality adjustment between the votes obtained at first count by the political parties making it to parliament and the parliamentary seats won.
When this adjustment was carried out the votes obtained at first count by ADPD-The Green Party amounting to 4747 were ignored. These votes amount to more than the national quota. This discrimination is a devaluation of the democratic process as it gives weight to votes cast in favour of Partit Laburista and Partit Nazzjonalista but ignores completely the votes cast for ADPD.
In the coming days, the final stage of the electoral process will be implemented. After all the bye-elections associated with the general election are concluded the Electoral Commission will assign up to a maximum of twelve additional parliamentary seats to the two parliamentary parties in order to address gender balance in the parliamentary ranks. This will add to the existing problems of parliamentary representation by further inflating the parliamentary seats of PLPN to the detriment of the rest. The proportionality principle, already very weak will be further eroded.
The Constitutional proceedings deal with all this. The Courts are being requested to find that there has been a breach of several human rights protected not only in terms of Malta’s Constitution but also in terms of the European Convention of Human Rights. We also point out that all this is in breach of the first protocol of the European Convention of Human Rights relative to free and fair elections.
We expect that the Courts identify suitable remedies to address the discrimination which has already taken place when the Partit Nazzjonalista was awarded additional parliamentary seats and the votes obtained by ADPD were ignored. We also seek the Courts’ protection from further discrimination which will occur in the coming days when the provisions of the gender balance corrective mechanism are applied.
Malta’s electoral system is not serving the country well: it has been manipulated repeatedly by the PLPN to serve their own interests. To this end they have also hijacked the Constitutional institutions. It is not only PLPN votes which are important: everyone’s vote is important and requires the utmost respect.
Carmel Cacopardo
ADPD Chairperson
Published in The Malta Independent – Sunday 3 April 2022
