Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1445232
OUR country has long been po- larised. Over the years we have been witnessing many an unsuc- cessful attempt at trying to have at least a third party represented in Parliament. Has the time come to deal once and for all with our bete noir? A partisan mentality continues to characterise Maltese society. Despite some dealignment and re- alignment within the party system, the party-identification model re- mains dominant. The unshakable alignment of core groups with specific parties has been creating an extremely divisive, corrosive and toxic environment in our lit- tle nation. The result has been the creation of a wasteland in terms of political discourse, where much of the population engages with infor- mation within mutually exclusive echo chambers. Undeniably, con- flict is avoided rather than nego- tiated, and what compromise and consensus do emerge is built on shifting sands. A reluctance to discuss poli- tics has resulted in a situation in which key issues contributing to group identity are sidelined. One central theme is that of coming to terms with our recent history and a process of historical revision- ism is still in its infancy. With no agreement over the interpretation of past political events, includ- ing the most recent controversial ones, the creation of consensus on present and future developments becomes much harder. I would dare state that our tra- ditional electoral system is very much to blame. The system al- lows for multi-seat electoral dis- tricts and since its inception in 1921, it has only facilitated en- trenched clientelism and political patronage on a large scale. Although the single transfer- rable vote (STV) system was in- tended to promote a multiparty system in Malta, it eventually gave rise to a strong two-party system which is still prevalent up to this day. Amendments passed in the 1980s and 1990s have only wors- ened the situation. The two-party system has failed to encourage a bipartisan approach. Instead, the winner-takes-all approach has bred destructive politics of divi- sion and mutual distrust. Indeed, Malta has remained the only national parliament with- in the EU with only two parties. A shift to a multiparty system, in theory, if not also in practice, would better represent diverse views and help erode polarisation, which is essential if we wish to embark on a smooth path to pro- gress and a better quality of life. Electoral-system changes, better access to the media and state sup- port to all political parties will be needed to carry this through. Our two-party system is unin- tentionally radicalising people and is leaving some people feeling so unrepresented in their ostensi- bly representative government. Considering what our country and people have gone through during the past few years, and even far back under different ad- ministrations at some point, and if such times are repeated in the near future, there will be enough illegal behaviour, enough breach- es of the Constitution being com- mitted by the elected officials that one will legitimately ask oneself what is one supposed to do. More so if nobody listens or do not even take a look at the evidence, or sim- ply dismisses all flagged cases on grounds that there is no standing or whatever. In such a scenario we could be dealing with institution- al decline and failure, both in the broader sense and, more specifi- cally, in our two-party system. Democracy stops working when people are divided into tribes and treat each other as enemies. When this happens, the structural mechanisms of democracy itself amplify the enmity by giving any majority, no matter how slight or big, the power to inflict whatever torments its members can dream up on the minority – which they invariably do because this is how one treats one's adversaries. Fur- thermore, intractable divisions within a society can be exploited by external forces to hasten that society's demise. Every few years, a new crop of politicians emerges promising to put country over party, to gov- ern on behalf of the people rather than the powerful, to listen to the better angels of our nature rather than the howling of our factions. And then the clock ticks for- ward, the insurgents become the establishment, public disillusion- ment sets in, the electorate swings a bit to the other side, and we start again. This cycle is a tributary feeding into our country's politi- cal rage – it is maddening to keep trying to fix a problem that only seems to get worse. Taking the multi-party system into consideration and comparing it to two-party or dominant party (one-party) systems, it could be argued that in the multi-party sys- tem, constituencies have a greater probability that their interests will be represented than in any other party system. In my opinion, this is because a multiparty system implies having at least three parties that may rep- resent completely different politi- cal ideologies and may be broadly scattered along the political spec- trum; whereas, in the two-party system, there is usually a maxi- mum of two political ideologies being represented that may have a rather big ideological distance, which implies quite a big gap be- tween the two parties, and, conse- quently, voters do not have their interests fully represented. Of course, the multiparty system may lead to a decrease in account- ability. This is because in a mul- ti-party system, the government is usually formed by coalitions, which consist of several parties, and the decision-making process, in this case, is not straightforward. Parties propose different initia- tives and then come up with a pol- icy or other decision as a result of negotiation and bargaining. Thus, it is difficult for the constituency to blame any particular party if the policy or the decision is unde- sirable or they believe it is unsuc- cessful. Also, in order for the multi-par- ty system to lead to more democ- racy, there should be a strong political culture in our country, good coalition potential, and par- ties which, although representing quite a big ideological difference, have common interests and goals. Saying we should keep the two-party political system simply because it is still working is like saying the Titanic voyage was a success because a few people sur- vived on life rafts. 12 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 23 JANUARY 2022 Dr Mark Said is a lawyer OPINION Mark Said Moving away from polarisation Saying we should keep the two-party political system simply because it is still working is like saying the Titanic voyage was a success because a few people survived on life rafts