The Decimal Point

The Times of Malta



Lino Spiteri and Joe Pirotta both coincidentally argued in The Times yesterday that adjusting the referendum result to take account of those people who abstained for natural reasons, rather than to endorse the Labour Party's stand, would still give the yes vote an overall majority of 50.57 per cent of the valid votes cast plus the assumed "meaningful" (that is, those who really meant to follow Labour's stand) non-voters.

They came to the same conclusion by taking a natural average of five per cent of the registered voters - five per cent of 297,881 = 14,894 voters - who would normally not vote or cancel their vote in any election.

`Once Labour had pre-declared it would include in its fold all those who abstained, it forced those who would "normally" prefer to stay out of the contest to form part of it.` Now to be fair it is sensible to make an adjustment to reduce the total eligible voters by those who died and those who wanted to vote but could not do so because of particular circumstances. But taking the normal average of five per cent seems out of place, for two reasons.

Firstly, because this time there was nothing normal. Once Labour had pre-declared it would include in its fold all those who abstained, it forced those who would "normally" prefer to stay out of the contest to form part of it. Action breeds reaction and this forced many Nationalists who would normally have wished to disapprove of their government by opting out of the vote to actually reserve their protest for the general election but vote yes in the referendum so as not to fall in Labour's net.

Secondly, of those who did not care to collect the vote there is likely to be a pro-Labour profile. If a voter is working abroad and would normally fly over to vote, would he actually do so when his party told him it would count his non-vote as much as a no vote`

So the normal five per cent, if it is normal, has in this instance to be scaled back by at least a third to take account of these two peculiarities thus applying a "normal" percentage of non-voters for this instance amounting to, say, 3.33 per cent.

Applying 3.33 per cent to the numbers would bring the following result:

Total of registered voters 297,881Less 3.33 per cent non-meaningful abstainers 9,919Adjusted "meaningful" registered voters` 287,962Yes votes` 143,094per cent of yes votes to "meaningful" registered voters 49.69%

So I could argue that the yes votes do not add up to 50.58 per cent of the adjusted number of registered voters but to 49.69 per cent. Nobody could prove me or them right or wrong.

Maybe my credentials in this regard have recently increased by predicting exactly the referendum result more than a month ago ("Back to square one", The Times - February 11). Only the Almighty has the property to read people's minds and interpret whether their doing nothing or cancelling their vote was "meaningful" or "non-meaningful". `the decision to bind Malta into irreversible EU membership cannot be taken by a few decimals of a full percentage point here or there. And this was the whole charade about this referendum.`

What I am positive about is that the decision to bind Malta into irreversible EU membership cannot be taken by a few decimals of a full percentage point here or there. And this was the whole charade about this referendum. It was the apex of democratic instruments being used in betrayal of democracy that it was attempting to symbolise.

I repeatedly and consistently made the point that the referendum was undemocratic for four basic reasons and that the government was using a supposed national democratic instrument for pure partisan politics. I pre-declared that I would not validate the referendum with a yes or no vote and that I will reserve my vote for a referendum that addresses the four basic defects of this one.

It has to be a choice between the two polices of the main political parties, not just saying yes or no to one of them.

Both arguments have to be rewarded with commensurate resources to state their case without unfairly bombarding the electorate with public money to extract the decision that the government wants.

It has to be held in a serene environment on a national basis after the election and not in the throes of an election campaign.

It has to be held by a government that has the constitutional mandate to execute the people's choice.

The last two conditions will take care of themselves by the calling of the elections on April 12. The first two will have to be considered by the next Labour government.