Can do Will do

The Times of Malta



Interpretations can be twisted.` Facts remain.

Having taken it for granted that they can carry the referendum with a comfortable outright majority and having planned the back to back election campaign as a mere celebratory sandwich between two victories, the PN are clearly at a loss to recompose their election strategy.

And this loss is showing in their desperate attempts to thwart facts on two basic points.` Firstly on the referendum result and secondly on Labour`s proposal to re-do the referendum post-election in a serious manner.

Their claim that they won the referendum is so untenable that they themselves apply inconsistent and contradictory arguments to it.` Sometimes they argue that the Yes has to be calculated solely as a percentage of the valid votes cast, and sometimes they argue that the No camp should not count in its bag the total of the uncollected, abstained and cancelled votes but only those above a normal average which they claim to amount to 5%.

`In full consistency with this line of thought, in line with what I have been proposing with nearly boring repetition for several months before the referendum, and indeed with what was promised in its 1998 electoral manifesto, Labour is proposing to re-run a serious referendum.` The former interpretation is ludicrous and undemocratic. Democracy in our system is built on political parties.` MLP, as one of the two major parties and the official opposition, gave instructions to its followers which included their right to abstain or to cancel.` Nobody complained about this before the referendum. No section of the law provides any interpretation that abstention and cancelled votes following official party policy should not be calculated in interpreting the result.

Labour Party gave advance warning to all its followers that their abstained or cancelled vote will count the same as a No vote.` I made this public beforehand in several of my writings. Labour made no attempt whatsoever to get out the vote and on the contrary advised the sick and aged in localities where no local council elections were being held to save their energies for the general elections.

On what democratic grounds may I ask should such votes following official party policy be excluded from the result`

As to the argument that 5% should be excluded being the normal non-meaningful abstainers or invalidators, I have argued that applying a normal ratio to abnormal circumstances is irrational and unconvincing. I argued that a rate of two-thirds the normal level would probably be more appropriate.` This however, remains mere conjecture as it is not possible to read people`s motivations and divide them between meaningful and non-meaningful abstainers/invalidators.

So the most one can say about the referendum result is that it was inconclusive. While the YES campaign continues to claim a hollow victory,` the No campaign readily admitted that its joy for winning by default of the Yes campaign to get the outright majority they took for granted, does not necessarily mean endorsement of the Partnership policy.

In full consistency with this line of thought, in line with what I have been proposing with nearly boring repetition for several months before the referendum, and indeed with what was promised in its 1998 electoral manifesto, Labour is proposing to re-run a serious referendum. `we give assurance that we can negotiate with the EU much better than the PN. We can do it, we will do it.`

If the Prime Minister had taken seriously Dr Sant`s offer to discuss an agreement for a post-election referendum we would have been spared the democratic deficit of the March 8 suffrage, and we could have had the referendum soon after the election.` Now that the possibility has been eradicated by the pre-mature, undemocratic and inconclusive referendum of March 8, all those who value democracy should be thankful that Labour is responsibly offering to give the final say to the people after a sufficient breather permitting more specificity on two important aspects. Firstly more substantial information about Partnership which in the meantime gets formally negotiated, and secondly more information on how the EU itself evolves its constitutional structure to crystallise the residual rights that `small members like Malta would have under the federal-like model the EU seems minded to adopt.

Instead of valuing this demonstration of applied democracy, the great pretenders organised under the Yes umbrella, `keep pushing for the minority to impose its will on the majority and expect a democratically elected Labour government to feel bound to the will of the minority rather than to the mandate given it to it by the majority.

And to show how they have no idea of what democracy is about we had Foreign Minister Joe Borg claiming incredibly that the EU will deny proper accreditation to a democratically elected Labour Prime Minister, and ex-PN Minister Michael Falzon pretending to speak on my and my colleagues behalf (It`s no longer `us against them`, The Times March 21st) claiming that we are all against `him`. Does Mr Falzon know that at least 3 hours before Dr Sant addressed the crowds at Marsa on March 9th, I was on Super One Radio explaining that as the Yes failed to get the overall majority, the No camp had a right to consider having won by the Yes default.

And the suspicion about the Prime Minister`s true democratic colours grow the longer he takes in assuring us that post-election he will respect the will of the majority. Labour has readily given this assurance. And likewise we give assurance that we can negotiate with the EU much better than the PN. We can do it, we will do it.

Alfred Mifsud