Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1122784
4 ANALYSIS EUROPEAN ELECTIONS maltatoday | WEDNESDAY • 29 MAY 2019 A MaltaToday analysis of vote transfers from third-party can- didates following their elimi- nation in last week's European election race shows far-right voters may be angrier at the political establishment and less disposed to continue their pref- erences on the major parties. And they are also slightly more likely to continue their vote on Labour candidates, when voters for other minor parties are more likely to continue their vote on PN candidates. 6,151 of Norman Lowell's final 9,693 votes (63.5%) were non- transferable, suggesting that by the penultimate count, when Lowell was eliminated, there were no surviving third-party candidates to transfer the votes to. But the rest of his votes were transferred to Labour (20%) and the PN (17%). The 1,625 Lowell votes transferred to the PN were nearly evenly split between the three remaining PN candidates namely Casa (587), Peter Agius (552) and Frank Psaila (486). 900 of the 1,917 votes transferred to Labour went Alex Agius Saliba, who was the first name on the list. Similar patterns could be ob- served among the smaller co- hort of Patriots voters whose candidates were eliminated at an earlier stage. The majority of were either non-transferable or inherited by Lowell. Only 15% of their votes were inherited by PL and PN candidates in nearly equal portions. Despite ideological differences third-party voters tend to trans- fer their votes to other third- party candidates, including the far right. By the time he was eliminated, Lowell managed to increase his share by 1,455 votes over and above a first count vote of 8,238 votes. Of these, 225 were trans- ferred from PL candidates and 195 from PN candidates. The rest were transferred from other third-party voters, including 262 PD voters and 239 AD voters. Lowell also inherited 212 votes from the two candidates stand- ing from fellow far-rightists in the MPM. By the time she was eliminat- ed, 51% of PD candidate Cami Appelgren's votes were non- transferable. Of the rest, only 11% were transferred to PL can- didates while 35% were trans- ferred to PN candidates. David Casa inherited 885 of the 1,816 votes inherited by the PN from the PD's candidate. This suggests that the PD candidate attracted some support from disgrun- tled Nationalists who gave their first preference to PD and then continued on Casa and Roberta Metsola, who was already elected when Appelgren was eliminated and could not inherit any of these votes. Vote transfers to Casa may well be seen as an indication of the level of support enjoyed by third parties among voters who identi- fy with civil society groups cam- paigning on rule of law issues like Occupy Justice and Repubblika. Appelgren emerges as the top choice among this category, as Casa ended up inheriting 17% of her voters. But this statistic has to be qualified by the fact that by the time of Appelgren's elimina- tion, several other PN candidates like Peter Agius and Michael Briguglio, who performed well with other third-party candi- dates, had already been elimi- nated. Moreover, the results suggest that Appelgren's catchment was wider than this restricted cohort. In fact, a tenth of her voters con- tinued voting on PL candidates. She also attracted voters of a lib- eral orientation. Only 3% of her voters continued on Lowell, who was the last surviving third party candidate at that time. Along her journey Appelgren also managed to attract most AD and Cassola voters. When AD's Mina Tolu was eliminated 219 of their votes preferred continuing on Appelgren, than on Carmel Cacopardo. When Cacopardo was eliminated the PD candidate received another 214 votes. She also inherited a substantial 459 votes from independent candi- date Arnold Cassola upon his elimination. Moreover, 168 of the 238 votes Appelgren inherited from the PN hailed from Michael Brigug- lio, a former leader of the Greens. She also inherited 101 votes from PL candidates. But Appelgren inherited only 31% of party leader Godfrey Far- rugia's inheritance. PN candi- dates inherited a greater portion of the PD's vote than Appelgren. Voters for Arnold Cassola, who emerged as the most success- ful independent MEP candidate contesting these elections, also followed similar patterns. Upon his elimination, while nearly half his votes were not transferable, 38% of his votes went to PN can- didates and only 8% were inher- ited by Labour candidates. But in Cassola's case the main ben- Angry votes? 64% of Lowell's votes JAMES DEBONO analyses the journey of third- party candidates' votes after their elimination 100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% Norman Lowell (IE) Cami Appelgren (PD) Godfrey Farrugia (PD) Arnold Cassola Carmel Cacopardo (AD) Mina Tolu (AD) Ivan Grech Mintoff (AB) Simon Borg (MPM) 63.5% 16.8% 19.9% 50.9% 35.2% 10.7% 3.2% 16.2% 33.4% 7.1% 31% 4.3% 8% 45.7% 37.9% 7.8% 16.1% 4.2% 32.4% 14.2% 8.6% 46.6% 13.3% 11.5% 10.1% 8% 8% 42.3% 25% 4.7% 37.3% 17.1% 6.2% 16.9% 7% 10.2% 5.3% 42.1% 6.7% 8.1% 2.2% 3.6% 27.1% 8.1% % Non-Transferable PN PL AD PD IE Cassola AB Percentage of each candidate's final vote tally transferred to other parties upon elimination Percentage of votes transferred By the time he was eliminated, Norman Lowell managed to increase his share by 1,455 votes over and above a first count vote of 8,238 votes