Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/987221
13 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 27 MAY 2018 NEWS IRELAND REFERENDUM liberals and more distant from Merkel's preferred coalition partners; the social democrats. Merkel may be pushing the more left- of-centre Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer – nicknamed the "mini-Merkel" after stra- tegically placed in the role of CDU secre- tary-general. She may be more inclined to continue the grand coalition with the social democrats or ally her party to the Greens. A populist alternative Yet Austria, Italy and Hungary offer an- other alternative for the European centre- right: a united populist right-wing. Victor Orban's Fidesz is part of the EPP but closer to the positions of the European far right than to Merkel's centrism. While in Italy the anti-immigrant Lega Nord, which is not a member of the EPP, has emerged as the main party of the right, in Austria the Christian Democrats are the main partners in a coalition with the far- right Freedom Party. A keen windsurfer and hiker, the 31-year old Austrian premier Sebastian Kurz is the right-wing's equivalent of poster-boy poli- ticians like Justin Trudeau and Emmanuel Macron. He has rebranded the party as the "New People's Party", changed its colour from black to turquoise, and has drawn in candidates from outside the Austrian People's Party's ranks. Kurz frequently reminds voters that he opposed opening the borders in 2015 during Europe's im- migration crisis. He also wants to restrict benefits for refugees and other new arriv- als. He also supports the classically con- servative positions such as lowering taxes for companies and opposing gay marriage. It is very hard to pigeonhole ideologi- cally topsy-turvy Maltese political parties in more rigid European political compart- ments. But with European elections loom- ing next year it will be interesting to see how local parties position themselves in a European reality where the European so- cialists are in free fall and the EPP is in- creasingly divided. jdebono@mediatoday.com.mt Below: pro choice campaigners hold up a poster of Savita Halappanavar, a 31-year-old Indian dentist, who died in 2012 at University Hospital Galway in Ireland due to the complications of a septic miscarriage at 17 weeks' gestation. The miscarriage took seven days to unfold, and early in the process, when it was clear that the miscarriage was inevitable, Halappanavar requested an abortion Both pro-choice (left) and pro- life (below) campaigners employed the female metaphor from The Handmaid's Tale to attract attention to their causes Women's Rights Foundation Irish vote spurs change MASSIMO COSTA FOLLOWING a landslide vote in fa- vour of legalising abortion in Ireland on Friday, Malta's Women's Rights Foundation told this newspaper that the Irish results encouraged the group to keep pushing for women's rights, and could lead to the issue be- ing given more prominence locally. "This is a fantastic day for women in Ireland," the WRF said, "While we still feel that something involv- ing women's rights should not have been subjected to a referendum, we nonetheless are very happy with the results, and it gives us hope that we will see changes happening locally." "It has encouraged us not to give up our mission for advocating for better reproductive rights for wom- en in Malta," it said, "Malta is now the only remaining European Union country that has a total ban on abor- tion, and we think it's high time this changes." "Maltese women are already having abortions, since those who afford it travel abroad to undergo the pro- cedure. This is very discriminatory towards those who don't have the means to do so," she highlighted. Asked for their views on the devel- opments in Ireland, the Malta Con- federation of Woman's Organisa- tions said the group had not reached a consensus whether it was for or against abortion. "The majority of our members might actually be somewhat against abortion, but not outrightly" the Confederation said, "Since this is such a sensitive issue, the individu- al members of our group can adopt their own positions on it." Irish Prime Minister hails "quiet revolution" Exit polls yesterday indicated that around 68% of Irish voters chose to remove the country's constitutional ban on abortion, with the official results confirming this as various constituencies completed their vote counting. The results were so strong that pro-life Savethe8th – the group cam- paigning for the Eight Amendment to the Irish constitution, which pro- hibits abortion, to remain in place – conceded defeat shortly after count- ing started. Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Leo Varadkar, a pro-choicer who was in favour of the changes, said Ireland was going to "make history". As he waited for the official results to be announced in Dublin, Varad- kar said the vote in favour was "the culmination of a quiet revolution that's been taking place in Ireland over 20 years." "It's been a great exercise in de- mocracy, and the people have said we want a modern constitution for a modern country, and that we trust women to take the right decisions about their own healthcare," Varad- kar said. "The people of Ireland weighed it in the balance and it came down on one side. I obviously would have pre- ferred if they had come down on the other," Savethe8th communications manager John McGuirk said. The Irish capital will have amongst the highest proportion of 'Yes' votes in the country, but even Ireland's more rural and conservative areas seem to have backed the reform. The Eight Amendment to the Constitution had come into effect in 1983, following a referendum where almost 67% voted in favour of the law. Since it was passed, an es- timated 170,000 Irish women have crossed the channel to England to undergo an abortion. Anyone having a termination pro- cedure done illegally between 1861 and 2013 risked life imprisonment, but since 2013 the punishment was reduced to 14 years of detention. In 1995, a time when the Church had significantly more influence in the country than now, divorce was approved in Ireland by a tiny ma- jority of 50.3%. Twenty years later, in 2015, the Irish voted in favour of same-sex marriage by 62%. mcosta@mediatoday.com.mt As Ireland takes forward a campaign to legalise abortion, Maltese women's rights lobby says result boosts their mission