Direct democracy – or personal politics
People on the European mainland don’t vote because they feel disconnected from politics and politicians. And people in Malta don’t vote because they feel too connected and everything is personal. Politics is not about the bigger picture and voting documents are chits that can be used to cash in favours – or returned. This is not a moral judgment, merely an observation. I think it’s interesting.
The ‘return my vote’ syndrome happens not because we don’t feel we are part of the political process, as some have claimed, but because we believe we are very much part of it, so much a part of it that the democratic process which others take for granted is not enough for us. We want more of a say. Devolution to local councils hasn’t helped much.
I understand why people do things like return their vote or not vote and say nothing about it. It’s a matter of pride and of honour, and that’s why the tendency is so pronounced in our southern Mediterranean culture. If you think somebody has screwed you over, you feel you are letting yourself down by voting for them.
You know you are seeing only the small picture and not the larger one, but it’s a matter of honour. Precisely because politics are so personal, and because people feel directly involved with politicians, this phenomenon is heightened. The ‘mela x’naghmel’ becomes personal.
The root cause of the problem is the entrenched view among many people that when we vote, we are doing the politicians a favour, when really the favour is to ourselves. Votes are not gifts that we give to political parties. They are the means by which we deliver ourselves from harm.
The Malta Independent, 17 June
PN receives hundreds of voting documents
by FRANCESCA VELLA
In the run-up to the European Parliament election, the Nationalist Party received hundreds of voting documents from people who traditionally vote PN, this newspaper has learnt.
While it is normal practice for a number of people who openly reveal their allegiance to send their voting documents to the two main political parties before elections, sources told this newspaper that the PN received hundreds of documents before the European Parliament election held on 6 June.
When contacted, PN secretary general Paul Borg Olivier could not confirm the exact number of voting documents received, but he said every person whose voting document ends up at the party headquarters is contacted individually.
All the voting documents are then returned to each person by hand, because it is illegal for anybody, including political parties, to be in possession of other people’s voting documents, said Dr Borg Olivier.
Labour Party secretary general Jason Azzopardi, on his part, said the PL did not receive a significant number of voting documents from traditional Labour supporters this time round.
Like the PN, the Labour Party also gets in touch with the people who send their voting documents to the party headquarters. They are then returned when party officials meet with them to listen to what they have to say and try convincing them to vote.
In the few cases that individuals do not accept to take their voting document back, the parties have no choice but to return them by post.
24 Comments Comment
Leave a Comment
There is another viewpoint, which I sense is gaining ground among the younger voters. This is that if I walk into a shop and I don’t find what I like, I don’t settle for second best; I just walk out. People will say one cannot apply this attitude to voting, but we’ll see more of it come the next general elections.
[Daphne – It depends what you mean by young. People in my age group (late 30s to early 40s) consider themselves young, refusing to face the words ‘middle aged’. But because I had babies early and they are now in their 20s, I am confronted with the real meaning of young on a daily basis, together with the reminder that, in their eyes, people my age who think they are young are actually really, and I mean really, over the hill. Last year’s general election was won by first-time voters aged between 18 and 22. Now that’s young. The T-shirts some of them wore to mass meetings said everything about how they saw the situation: Vote Labour? Inz*bb*b. People that age are blessed with an extraordinary ability to see things clearly, and they are not beset by the angst and disillusionment of middle age, which, if we are honest, is the real source of many people’s disaffection, though they project it on the public sphere and life in general. I can’t help but notice how many of my contemporaries are ’empty’, bitter, resentful or just completely fed up of themselves. In this kind of mood, they do the adult equivalent of the teenage ‘looking for trouble’. If they can’t find trouble, then they sure as hell are going to create some. The swing towards Labour in 1996 was among the middle-aged, and from what I’m picking up, it was the same again this time. Young people, bless them, tend to focus on the big picture, and their picture is even bigger now thanks to the very different lives they’re leading. The polls carried out before this election showed that the Nationalist Party was ranked top for education policy and educational initiatives by the vast majority of electors, of whatever age or voting preference. You’ve got a good clue there.]
In this case, by young I mean people who hadn’t arrived on this planet during the Mintoff and KMB governments, so that excludes us and other middle aged people. I agree with you on last year’s general elections and first time voters – I don’t think Sant’s “embracing” of the EU convinced many, least of all these people. Another four years and with someone else leading the party, will this be such as critical issue? If middle-aged people (let themselves) get bored with their work and with their personal life x’tistenna? I find there’s so much to do (work-wise and leisure-wise) and so little time. Anyway, I’d love to see a Maltese general election when only half the voters bother to turn up. Switzerland-in-the-Mediterranean some day?
I have to disagree with you here, Daphne. Many young people fail to see things clearly. Today’s 20-year-olds have no first-hand experience of what a Labour government means, for a start. Furthermore, I’ve found that understanding comes with age. I’ve lost the impetuousness of youth and my judgement is far better now. I’m glad to say I’m not bitter, resentful or fed up, even though I’ve been through several very traumatic events. As for over the hill, well, my footballing days are over but I’m making a determined effort to regain my fitness (largely lost by smoking, which I’ve now quit) by running again. I don’t think I’m that much of an exception either.
Politics in Malta leaves much to be desired, and unfortunately politicians have brought this on themselves with partisan behaviour that followed on from the nepotism of the 1980s, with ministers recruiting hundreds of people for jobs on the state payroll on the eve of the general election. Politicians got votes not on the basis of credibility or competence but because “dak jirrangalek”: jobs, housing and even the odd transfer. It’s about time our politicians grew up and stop promising the world; likewise voters must vote based on substance.
Nepotism goes beyond the 80s, it goes into the 90s and continues in 2000s. That is why Air Malta and other state-owned groups nowadays are in trouble. On one hand the companies are paying out their employees to leave their place of work and on the other they are still recruiting ”privileged’ people in.
You really don’t know what you are saying about Air Malta. Go and ask your Zejtun ex-minister to see who the ‘privileged’ ones were. And don’t focus only on the employees – so Louis Grech was ‘privileged’ as well.
@Maryanne
What has Louis Grech got to do with nepotism? He was always one of the best managers and the best chairmen. Much, much better than the one appointed by the government who brought about the cursed RJs. Also please note that during its first decade Air Malta was the backbone of Malta’s economy and the employees strove to make the airline which was quoted by you as ‘ghasfur tac-comb’ really soar. And it did.
Ghaliex bniedem ghandhu jivvota jekk ma jaqbilx mal-programmi tal-partiti li jkunu qed jikkontestaw l-elezzjoni?
[Daphne – Because there isn’t an alternative called ‘no government’. Once there is going to be a prime minister anyway, whatever you choose to do, you might as well pick which one you prefer, instead of having the one you don’t prefer imposed on you by the votes of others. It’s called common sense. It is also the reason why Alternattiva never got anywhere: people correctly gauge the importance of choosing their prime minister, and that’s what they do in an election.]
I may be wrong here, but this is probably a result of Malta’s population. It is much easier for the political parties to touch base with people at a personal level with 300,000+ voters than with 5,000,000+ voters. In addition, the exercise of touching base would be generally limited to a much smaller number, enough to overturn a potentially negative result.
I did not know that Jason Azzopardi has jumped ship from his appointment as Parliamentary Secretary resposible for the clean up of Malta, to join the PL as secretary general. Always taught that Jason Micallef was untouchable in this position.
People do not vote, when they have a point to prove. In this case over 74,000 voters did not vote. Some defaced their vote; the others did not bother to go. 35,000 more votes were given to the PL at the EP elections.
This is a mass protest. As you said, votes are a means to protect ourselves from harm, that is voting for the wrong people and the wrong party or through our absence allow the wrong people/party to be elected.
One cannot just grab a minister by the scruff of his neck and try to shake some sense in him, but the protest vote in this case is more lethal than a pistol.
I only hope that the PN in government has learned a lot from this. Just remember that 109,000 votes at an average “kwota” of 4000 in a general election equals 27 parliamentary seats. No wonder there was such an uproar among the PN’s parliamentary group after the results of the EP elections were known.
A general cleanup, and a revised strategy is required so that people are once again won over through fair treatment.
It is illegal for anyone to be in possession of another person’s voting document, but is it illegal for a person to give or post his voting document to another person? If yes, then the political parties should just hand them back to the electoral commission or to the respective police stations and let them deal with it. That should put an end once and for all to all these buffi and their tejatrini. If they don’t want to vote, so be it. All they have to do is just not turn up to vote and the political parties would still get to know about them. Sending your voting document to a political party before an election is tantamount to blackmail. If you don’t give me x, I won’t give you y.
There’s a simpler way: do away with the silly voting document and allow people to identify themselves at polling stations with their ID card. Which, after all, is the document we use to identify ourselves in all other circumstances. And you be mightily cheaper.
Rest assured no one will mail their ID card to anyone else as, administratively, it is tantamount to shooting yourself in the foot. And the knees. And the palms of your hands.
I agree totally with Anna. Sending your voting documents to a political party is tentative bullying and rather childish, as I see it. “See here, I am not voting for you as you did not give me this or that!” I am still not sure if this is hilarious or tragic.
Poor Malta….when are we going to move on?
Oh so people were individually contacted now, were they? Before the election of course, I take it? After having received a letter in early June from Mr Henri Darmanin advising me that I hadn’t yet collected my voting document (as if I didn’t know) and that I had such-and-such a date by which I could do so (and please do so, was the hooded plaintiff, of course), I duly went up to Gozo to collect it – but still in the end chose not to vote. I don’t feel I should be contacted simply because I’m one of a “reliable” number – and definitely not just for my vote. I’m not a number. The least I expect is that when a person is hurt and cannot comprehend the reason behind certain actions (rikatti?), the VERY least another person can do is listen – and eventually get back. No, I don’t need to send my voting document to Stamperija. They know who I am. And I’m still waiting.
How petty.
Mixx, so you had to “go to Gozo” to collect your voting document. Are you one of those ‘cunning’ Maltese who register themselves in Gozo to save a few euros on the ferry tickets?
Yes, amazing, isn’t it? People who can afford thousands for a second home (or should I say a first, because most probably actually live in property which is not theirs, anyway?) then tend to be “qammellin” when it comes to paying their ferry fare.
(The funny thing is that they are then probably paying more for their water and electricity, because the consumption on the second place is probably less that their normal place of residence, hence less subsidies.)
Jog my memory. Why did DOM give Gieh ir-Repubblika to Leone?
@ Mixx
Both parties send these type of mails and as far as I my experience shows, they send it to all (I received a letter from both some years back).
I am sorry but can never understand your reasoning. Whatever your reasons, by your actions you have left others to decide for you. In my book this can be defined as either that you played the part of Pontius Pilate or that you wanted the PL in power but did not want it to be known or else you were trying to blackmail. In all these cases, your actions are simply incomprehensible.
Voting is your right and is the only way to really influence who governs you for five years – and thus the way that you can live – either in a comfortable purgatory or a uncomfortable one.
I agree with the suggestion that we should use our ID cards when voting – of course, the ID card should have a valid expiry date. No need to go to the unnecessary expense of printing voting documents.
@Chesterfield: To each one his own. It’s called democracy.
@Antoine: I’m one of the “cunning” ones who decided I needed to marry a Gozitan so that I get “free” weekend breaks. And “cheaper” ferry tickets too. Smart, eh?
@ Chris ll: I can’t blame you for not understanding. Really, I’m serious. You can’t see the full picture and I’m not in a position to say more. Suffice it to say that (1) we’re talking about EP elections here, so there’s no case of influencing who’s “governs”, as you say; (2) had I wanted to vote for some Labour candidate in these elections and not wanted anyone to know about it, I’d have done just that and not have stuck my neck out and not used my vote, for all to see; if on the other hand I had wanted to blackmail…..not my style at all. Besides, as Daphne very shrewdly points out in her article, I’m one of those who are too proud anyway to resort to such a cowardly act….. I would have sent my voting doc to Stamperija for them to call me back (ovvja!); and (3) I was brought up fighting (literally!) tooth and nail for Eddie’s “djalogu” to reign supreme. Where is that now?
Mixx, the voting document is not sent to your wife’s family but to you. You live in Malta but – in order to save on the ferry ticket – have registered yourself as residing in Gozo (clearly a falsehood) thus contributing to the artificial inflation of the Gozitan electorate. The result of your action was that a village (Għajnsielem?) was going to be hived off from Gozo for the 2008 elections. This possibility was used by the MLP to blackmail the PN into accepting unsatisfactory electoral districts in return for safeguarding the integrity of Gozo as one district. Thank you for that.
The fact that your wife is Gozitan is neither here nor there.
I see Mixx’s point, though. There should NOT be a different fare for Gozitan and Maltese citizens. Gozitans do not only come over to Malta to work, or to visit the hospital. Most come over to enjoy themselves – visit Paceville, have a weekend break in one of our hotels, attend the horse races at the Marsa etc., Why these Gozitans should cross the ferry at a fraction of the cost of their Maltese counterparts beats me.
In cases of hardship, or in cases of bad health, visits to hospital or travelling for work purposes, then Gozitans should be asked to produce proof, and allowed to travel at special rates as a social service. Otherwise the fares should be the same for everyone.
What I can’t understand is what could these hundreds of people who send their voting documents to a political party possibly need from the government, the Nationalist party or the Labour party. I am 46yrs old and neither my extended family nor myself have ever needed any favours. Before anybody jumps to conclusions, no we are neither rich nor noble. We are all ordinary citizens with normal jobs. We have always worked hard for our money, bought our own residences, got loans from the bank and always got what was rightfully ours through the normal system. And we got by just fine.