Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/661117
maltatoday, SUNDAY, 3 APRIL 2016 News 13 to encourage the fragmentation of the vote. In fact Malta did experience a multiplicity of parties in parliament in the 1920s, the 1950s and the 1960s but this failed to stop the drift to a duopoly. In Ireland, which has a similar voting system, eight parties and various inde- pendents are represented in parliament. In this country smaller parties vigorously campaign for second preferences through door to door campaigning. Vote transfers from larger parties could also technically help third parties get elected at district level. Even in local councils in Malta, AD has managed to elect candidates with the same system, benefitting from vote trans- fers from larger parties whenever it won a substantial amount of first preferences. Through this system AD has become a fix- ture in the elected Sliema and Attard local councils. Part of the problem in national elec- tions is the size of constituencies, which elect five MPs each. This means that third party candidates technically need around 16% of the vote to get elected on the basis of first preferences. At council level elect- ing a third party candidate is easier for the sheer reason that some localities elect more than 10 representatives – thus substantially lowering the 'quota' needed for election. Surely they can get elected with fewer first count votes if they also attract a large number of second preferences. One major problem for third parties in Malta is that they do not sufficiently ex- ploit the voting system to benefit from vote transfers. Yet instructing voters to transfer their vote after voting for one of the big parties is very complicated. For the third party would only benefit if they attract the second preferences either of candidates elected with a very big surplus of votes (like party leaders) or weaker candidates whose votes are transferred in their entirety. A third party will never benefit from a second preference inher- ited from a candidate who just makes it to parliament with no surplus of votes above the district quota. The prospect of instability Third parties are also haunted by the perennial question of with whom they would ally themselves if they manage to get elect- ed to parlia- ment. This concern would only increase if voters perceive a re- alistic chance for a third party to get elected. This is because if a third party candidate makes it to par- liament, the 1987 amendment securing a majority of seats for the majority party will no longer count. In such a sce- nario a party with more seats but fewer votes than its chief rival may end up governing the country. Moreover if the two major parties get an equal number of seats, the third party may end up determining who governs the country. Surely one may rebut the claim that third parties are a recipe for instability by arguing that this is already the case when a single party government relies on a one-seat majority. Both the Sant and Gonzi governments suffered the fate of being toppled by a defector from their own ranks. But a multiparty democracy is not necessarily asso- ciated with instability. Germany, which has Europe's most stable economy, has had coalition governments for most of its post war history. Most countries in Europe are run by coalitions and most of these last a whole legislature. Yet post war Malta has only had a brief experience of sonalities, who have an axe to grind against the two big parties but lack the ideological glue that is required for long-term survival. Reports on Marlene Farrugia's new grouping suggest that the new grouping is already facing this problem, with the Greens who were involved in talks with Farrugia expressing their unwillingness to lose their identity. It also remains to be seen how strong person- alities like Salvu Mallia will fit in a political par- ty. Farrugia's designation of the group as "cen- tre left" appears more than an attempt to lure disgruntled Labour supporters than a concrete project. Moreover it remains to be seen how any new grouping will tackle issues like civil lib- erties, European integration and immigration. Moreover, although the convergence of the big parties to the centre ground has left gaps both to their right (which led to the aliena- tion of eurosceptics, xenophobes and Christian conservatives) and to their left (which led to the alienation of both traditional socialists and civil society activists with a green and liberal agenda). Although there may be instances where old school anti EU socialists may find common ground with the nationalist right wing (some- thing reflected in Ivan Grech Mintoff's Alleanza Bidla), any such platform is off-putting to both mainstream liberal voters and also to those who yearn for a more left wing political force. An- other option would be to converge to the cen- tre already occupied by the main parties while emphasising issues related to good governance (similar to the centrist Ciudadanos party in Spain). But any new party needs to rely on ide- alistic volunteers who are bound to be fired up by a more radical ideological programme. Reconciling the different strands which may be attracted to the prospect of a new party is already a difficult task; putting all together in a hotchpotch veers on the impossible. Even AD, which was relatively ideologically homog- enous, finding a home in the left wing European Greens, has often experienced clashes between powerful and assertive personalities. Moreover, AD faced a constant turnover, los- ing prominent members like Saviour Balzan, Peppi Azzopardi, Toni Abela, and Wenzu Mintoff who either drifted back to the party of origin or left politics altogether to become lead- ing protagonists on the media landscape. AD was wary of projecting its chairperson, a role initially occupied by Wenzu Mintoff, who held on to his seat in parliament, as a party lead- er. Under Harry Vassallo the party managed to renew itself, attracting a new generation of ac- tivists mostly derived from Moviment Graffitti. The party for a time also capitalised on Arnold Cassola's near miss in the 2004 MEP election, but failed to build on the momentum, scoring a dismal result in the 2008 general election. The party managed to grow in the 2013 election, despite the PL landslide, but the sudden de- parture of Michael Briguglio in the wake of the 2013 election, after the party's best result, left a vacuum and the re-election of veteran Arnold Cassola as chairperson gave the impression that the party had stagnated. Azzjoni Nazzjonali, another ideologically homogenous party on the conservative right, which attracted strong personalities like former PN firebrand Josie Muscat and entrepreneur Angelo Xuereb, also failed to survive and even lacked AD's ability to cope with disappoint- ments at the polls. Norman Lowell's Imperium Europa has so far managed to occupy the space on the hard right, despite its leader's extremist views, which included the idea of shooting migrants on the high seas. But the IE party remains indistin- guishable from its leader and has so far failed in fielding candidates in all districts in a general election. One major problem for third parties in Malta is that they do not sufficiently exploit the voting system to benefit from vote transfers s t s t s u m u m u b m b m l b l b e This is because if a third party candidate makes it to par- e This is because if a third party candidate makes it to par- l e l b l b e b l b get set... stumble renew itself, attracting a new generation of ac- tivists mostly derived from Moviment Graffitti. The party for a time also capitalised on Arnold Bidla), any such platform is off-putting to both mainstream liberal voters and also to those who yearn for a more left wing political force. An- other option would be to converge to the cen- tre already occupied by the main parties while emphasising issues related to good governance (similar to the centrist Ciudadanos party in Cassola's near miss in the 2004 MEP election, but failed to build on the momentum, scoring a dismal result in the 2008 general election. The party managed to grow in the 2013 election, The party for a time also capitalised on Arnold renew itself, attracting a new generation of ac- tivists mostly derived from Moviment Graffitti. The party for a time also capitalised on Arnold