Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1298422
8 maltatoday | WEDNESDAY • 14 OCTOBER 2020 ANALYSIS AMID growing speculation of a general election in late 2020, Prime Minister Rob- ert Abela has signed off an area five times the size of Buskett to the hunting lobby. Opposition leader Bernard Grech has so far been careful in his choice of words, criticising the way the agreement was concocted behind people's backs with- out committing a new PN government to scrap it. The three-year shelf-life of the agree- ment ensures the PN will have to commit itself whether to retain an agreement op- posed by a significant portion of its actual and likely voters. And this raises the question whether Grech has the audacity to grab an oppor- tunity by clearly committing his party to reclaim Miżieb and l-Aħrax for the peo- ple. 1. Hunters have swayed elections in the past but Maltese society is changing Back in the 1970s it was a Mintoff-led government which passed the first rules regulating hunting in Malta to the con- sternation of the hunting lobby, which organised the first protests. But on the eve of the 1987 election Labour started to pander to the hunting lobby by com- mitting Miżieb and l-Aħrax to the hunt- ing lobby in a desperate bid to hold on to power. Labour smelt an opportunity again when hunters rebelled against stricter regulations enacted by Nationalist parlia- mentary secretary Stanley Zammit. This led to the signing of a formal pre-elector- al pact with hunters, which along with a promise to scrap VAT, was a major fac- tor in Alfred Sant's surprise victory in the 1996 general election. But in 1998 it was the PN's turn to sign a similar pact with hunters in an election which saw Fenech Adami return to power and setting the country back on course to joining the Eu- ropean Union. While the hunting lobby remains as strong as ever, the country has also seen a sharp rise in environmental sensitivi- ty since the early noughties, which may render such agreements toxic for an in- creasing number of voters. The question remains whether their revulsion at the hunters' ability to blackmail the political class will be enough to make them change their vote. 2. The PN still won the EU referendum despite hunting The PN did make a promise to safeguard spring hunting and to maintain the status quo for hunters and trappers before the 2003 EU referendum, something which returned to haunt the party in later years where PN governments under pressure from the European Commission, found themselves facing accusations of betray- al by hunting lobbies despite their efforts to safeguard Spring hunting in European courts. But despite reassurances to the contra- ry, joining the EU was always bound to threaten the status quo. Despite awareness of the long-term threat posed by the EU to hunting, a strong majority still confirmed the yes majority in an election held in 2003. While hunting was a factor in PN's de- cision to shun a pro-EU coalition with the Greens who were vociferous in their opposition to Spring hunting, the result indicates that hunters did not put their hobby before what they perceived to be the right decision to take for the ben- efit of their country. The poor result by Lino Farrugia when he contested as an independent in the first MEP elections in 2004, where he got just 3,119 votes, exposed the weakness of hunters as a standalone independent lobby group, re- minding them that their power depended on exercising leverage on political parties. 3. The majority of PN voters already op- pose hunting and the party can't ignore its own grassroots Surveys held before the Spring hunting referendum showed two-thirds of PN voters inclined to vote against Spring hunting despite their party's directive under Simon Busuttil to vote to keep the status quo. Surveys also showed a far stronger anti-hunting majority among the tertiary educated where opposition to spring hunting was over 60%. This con- trasted with a majority of PL voters who followed their party directive to support spring hunting. Moreover, opposition to Spring hunting was strongest in northern districts where the PN is stronger. This suggests that PN voters do not feel bound by their party's stance to retain hunting privileges, and their views expressed in the social media may well turn off hunters from the party irrespective of any official declaration to the contrary by party officials. The PN risks alienating some of its sup- porters who would to like to see their party take leadership on an issue which unites various cohorts of PN voters. in- cluding younger and environmentally sensitive voters, as well as older, more conservative voters who resent the bull- ishness of the hunting lobby. But while this may serve in galvanising the PN coa- lition in its urban strong holds uniting en- lightened conservatives and more liberal ones, it risks further weakening the PN in rural regions where Labour has made re- markable advances in recent years. 4. PN has been losing support in pro-hunting localities, which are vital for its recovery An analysis of the Spring hunting ref- erendum result by district clusters showed the Spring hunting lobby winning by over 60% in the Labour-held, hunting country of the fifth, sixth and seventh districts – southeast and west, and in Gozo. On the other hand the No to Spring hunting won by over 60% collectively in the cluster in- Hunting demographics favour Labour. But the PN's own recovery depends on a rebound in Gozo, the west and the south-east where its support plummeted over the past two decades. Would Labour lose a generation of educated, environmentally-sensitive voters? And is the PN risking boosting abstention figures by being reluctant on taking a clear stance? JAMES DBEONO explores the electoral dynamics of the hunting issue Hunting for votes: How cunning