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Mark Said is a veteran lawyer Mark Said maltatoday | SUNDAY • 2 MARCH 2025 6 OPINION Cassola's Moment(um) WHAT inspired Arnold Cassola and his collaborators to name the newly launched party 'Momentum' was a British left-wing political organisation. It was actually a grassroots movement supportive of the Labour Party, founded in 2015 by Jon Lansman, Adam Klug, Emma Rees and James Schneider after Jeremy Corbyn's successful campaign to become Labour Party leader. By 2021, it was reported to have between 20,000 and 30,000 mem- bers. Like all recently formed political par- ties in Malta, Cassola's party aims to put an end to the Labour and National- ist parties' dominance in the upcoming 2027 general election. Whether it will eventually succeed in its aim remains to be seen. However, the fact that he gar- nered a 12,700 first-count vote tally in the last European Parliament election is not to be taken lightly. Yet, what impact might this Momen- tum Party have on Malta's traditional mainstream parties? Will it somehow make inroads in breaking the historical alternating power grabs of Nationalist and Labour governments? Is it capable of reshaping the familiar Maltese polit- ical landscape? It is opined that green principles will surely be a major factor in propelling Cassola's party forward. Over the last few years, both the PN and PL have been losing votes; votes that were once almost exclusively given to these two mainstream parties. At the same time, voter turnout has declined. Regardless of the analytical reasons, Malta's mainstream parties are losing ground and are not convincing as many people as they once did. While it's easy to blame external factors like misinfor- mation or divisive rhetoric, that's not enough in a democratic system. Our system is straightforward – parties and politicians need to win votes. If peo- ple aren't convinced, they will shift their support to other parties. Blaming factors beyond their control will only further harm the mainstream parties. Our mainstream parties have tradi- tionally been broadly situated in the middle of the political spectrum. In the EU, these parties are generally affiliated with the S&D and EPP. The two big parties played an impor- tant role in simplifying the political pro- cess, representing a large amount of peo- ple and pulling people into the political process. Traditionally, Labour represented the poorer working class while richer, mid- dle- and upper-class voters opted for the PN. At one point, the system also had a divide along religious-secular beliefs. Yet, although lately, a slight decline of these parties has been apparent, they, however, remain mainstream despite a few minuscule parties and independent candidates having managed to attract a few thousand voters away from them. A growing political disaffection is caus- ing even lower voter turnout. There are multiple drivers for political disaffec- tion. What is clear is that for people to feel part of a system and for that system to be of interest to them, they must feel like they have some power within it. Our democracy is seeing a decline in support for traditional political parties. In parallel, the vote shares of populist and other antiestablishment forces ap- pear to have increased, especially during the last European Parliament and Local Council elections. The latter develop- ment is the consequence of the former, with its negative consequences for the functioning of democracy. Institutional weakness is becoming a recurring theme. Unfortunately, our established democracy is seeing its in- stitutions gradually weaken or decay in recent months. When this is the case, voters will be inclined to punish main- stream political parties in an election. And even when mainstream parties sur- vive, outsiders will find ways to wrestle some control of the reins of political leadership. Perhaps this is the ultimate aim of Cassola's Momentum Party, as it surely can never become another main- stream party. At least, not for now. Yet, can a third party ever make it to Castille or, for a bare minimum, manage to elect a member of the House of Repre- sentatives? Can voting third-party send an effective message to mainstream poli- ticians? Is voting for a third-party candi- date wasting your vote, or is it inadvert- ently helping one of the other parties? It is likely that the 2027 general elec- tion will be a nail-biter between the PN and PL, based on the thin, albeit fluc- tuating, margins coming out of the fre- quent surveys. But for voters not satis- fied with either choice, who they'll vote for instead and how that could impact an election this tight are questions on many people's minds. Of course, if any extensive reform is undertaken to our current electoral sys- tem, Cassola's party might stand the best chance ever to significantly damage the alternating political strongholds of both the PN and PL. Rumours of an impending substantial electoral reform have been rife lately. Hermann Schiavone, a political analyst and elections expert, writing in the local media some time ago, came up with the plausible idea of having just six electoral districts in Malta, while Gozo would re- main a separate region. Each candidate will only be permitted to stand in one district, thus eliminating the need for casual elections. Such a reform would ensure that localities are not split. Fur- thermore, the threshold in a district will go down from 16.6 percent to 9.09 per- cent. There could even be a remote possi- bility of having a single nationwide con- stituency by proportional representation with closed lists. Now, that would be the greatest chance ever for Cassola's party and (why not?) even other small parties. While perhaps Professor Arnold Cas- sola might be brimming with politi- cal and electoral enthusiasm, his party risks one of two things: Either becoming 'mainstream' or receiving arguably the opposite designation – pariah party. Arnold Cassola (right) and the Momentum team