The choice of referendum date
It’s occurred to me that one of the reasons the government, which is backing the Yes vote, has set the referendum date for 11 April is to confront all those Maltese electors living away from Malta with a choice between visiting their families in Malta for Easter on the weekend of April 3, 4 and 5, or coming to Malta to vote the following weekend.
Nobody will do both – fly out both weekends – and very few will be able or even willing to take the intervening week off work when they have limited overall holiday time or pressing commitments. So most likely, only the students will be hanging around.
The object of this is to reduce voter turn-out overall, as you need a turn-out of more than 50% of the electorate for the result to be valid, and especially to reduce voter turn-out among the No vote. A large (it might even be dominant now) number of Maltese electors who live away from Malta are Labour voters, but given the context in which they operate, they are more likely to be anti-spring hunting.
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You have to keep in mind that the courts have set a date after 9th April.
[Daphne – That does not mean the first Saturday after 9th April. With a gap of a month or two between Easter weekend and the referendum, electors living away from Malta would be more likely to fly in twice. With a week in between, they definitely won’t. Would you? I wouldn’t. It would be either/or for me and for most people, a choice between Easter and the referendum. And because the Good Friday to Easter Monday long weekend is a holiday anyway in many European countries (including Britain, where many Maltese electors live), they are more likely to fly out for that.]
I agree 100%
If I remember correctly, before the last general elections, people who were abroad on the election day could vote around a week before the election date in Malta.
There has long been the idea that Maltese persons who are abroad should be able to vote without travelling to Malta by means of postal voting or voting in Maltese embassies.
Add to the above reason the fact that most old people won’t bother to come out to vote considering the issue is not a general election.
Numbers start to dwindle.
..is good for the NO.
Incorrect.
Voters can ask to vote a week earlier so they would be voting on Easter Sunday.
[Daphne – I have heard nothing about voting facilities on Easter Sunday. It strikes me as unlikely. But perhaps the Saturday.]
I think you meant to write ‘ among the No vote’ in the last paragraph not ‘among the Yes vote’.
[Daphne – Yes, I did. I have just corrected it.]
I think the main reason is to open the spring hunting season immediately the result of the referendum is announced.
Every decision taken by this Labour government is motivated by underlying perverse considerations. The bigger the decision, the bigger the perversion.
The way I see it, the No vote stands absolutely no chance of winning.
Assuming an optimistic 75% turnout at the polls, with 55% (of the turnout) against spring hunting and 45% in favour, then all the Yes voters need to do to win the referendum is not show up as their 45% of 75% together with the ones who didn’t vote would easily exceed 50% of the electorate. Straight from the Alfred Sant school of “How to win the referendum”.
(Spoilt*)
I don’t believe this to be the strategy as it would only result in a difference of under 1,000 votes.
[Daphne – When I was little, my maternal grandmother still had her Edwardian childhood money-box with the inscribed legend ‘Every little makes more’. It fascinated me. That is exactly the working-principle with which Joseph Muscat secured a majority of 36,000 votes, building them up over five years.]
If the government really wanted to lower voter turnout, they would have come up with some excuse to hold the referendum on a different day to the local council elections as this would have a much bigger impact on turnout.
Furthermore, it would be quite a high risk if the FKNK advise their members to abstain from voting to try and lower the turnout to under 50% and it’s very unlikely they will do this.
No political party can openly follow that strategy as it should be their duty to encourage people to vote.
That is precisely why I will not be flying to Malta. It is just too much to fit in so close to the Easter holidays, especially with a baby and a pre-schooler in tow.
I believe the reason is to hold the referendum BEFORE another spring hunting season. Otherwise too many case of illegal hunting would ruin any chance of winning the hunters had.
Spot on. Exactly my first thought when dates were announced.
Me too. So what will be the date of the next general election? My guess: 2nd week of January.
I think Joseph Muscat set that particular date because the oil hedging process will end before that, and he will be able to reduce the price of petrol right on time to cheat the people for their votes.
You said it! He is an expert in how to buy votes. He is vile and nothing less!
The date is precisely chosen to be exactly before the hunting season because if the referendum date was chosen afterwards there was the possibility of illegal hunting and therefore will make more no voters go out to vote.
Ahjar. Inhallsulhom mit-taxxi taghna biex jigu jivvutaw u lanqas biss qed jghixu hawn.
About time they introduce the postal vote I’d say.
You forgot to mention the many Maltese who were planning, or had already planned, a holiday abroad at that time.
That is the demographic most likely to vote against spring hunting too. I mean, apart from the yearly hamallu trip to Primark in ‘Landin’, the hunter types don’t really travel too much, even less so around that time when they get decidedly drunk with all of their family and friends at the Easter celebrations.
The reason is simple. The government chose this day because it does not want the electorate to hear the gunshots as these would encourage more voters to vote no.
Birdlife needs to clarify matters.
It’s website still carries a magazine which reads ‘Vote YES to stop Spring hunting’
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0ThwSGX_J84/U1pR-zCmSvI/AAAAAAAAAoU/7jM2q_N-a88/s1600/For+People2.jpg
http://birdlifemalta.blogspot.com/2014/04/spring-watch-2014-access-all-areas.html
Actually that photo reminded me of all the traffic signs that used to be used for target practice by ‘hunters’ some years back.
It’s amazing what we’ve had to accept from these people all these years.
I like this.
I was half expecting an RTO sign attached to it but it’s not shot at so presumably it isn’t in Malta.
http://depositphotos.com/20780309/stock-photo-malta-signpost-along-a-rural.html
Daphne, I think you are splitting hairs as to the significance of the date. The NO got the referendum against all odds, and coinciding with the local council elections.
Now it’s up to the people to decide. But with role models like Dr Busuttil I think Malta deserves to retain spring hunting, as we are a bunch of savages, with political leaders who are as malleable as plasticine.
Re my last comment . Actually we deserve to have maleable leaders.
Just look what happened to Gonzi. Because he stuck to his guns as he was against divorce, and still voted against divorce in parliament, the electorate took him to the cleaners in the general election.
Not just because of divorce, freedom5.
The plain fact is that the electorate were tired of the Nationalist Party in government and would have booted them out with or without that vote on divorce.
Ditto and likewise for the honoraria question and Arriva (or rather, Austin Gatt generally). Once the Libyan crisis was over, Gonzi’s stock rapidly fell off the scale.
To this day, I cannot understand why he didn’t call an election at the height of that crisis. Even if he didn’t win, at least it wouldn’t have been a drubbing of epic proportion.