Now that some weeks have elapsed since the March parliamentary elections, we may look back at Malta’s electoral system and our way of electing governments. The political positions of any of the parties are not under scrutiny here, but rather our systems of choosing parliaments and governments. The views expressed in this article, though personal, are intended to contribute to a searching debate about outstanding constitutional questions.

Josef Mario Briffa SJ

With the memory of the latest electoral campaign still fresh, all parties are probably still recovering from the political bludgeoning to which they submitted each other. While uncovering inadequacies on the other side in this battle of the titans (where the minor parties hardly had a chance) is an important part of politics, the battle raged even more strongly and viciously than usual.

Nevertheless, taking a distance, we ought to notice – gratefully – that the two major contesting parties are based on solid value systems that could contribute positive to the country’s development. If all sides have their defects in implementation, we should be thankfully aware that the values of democracy, respect for and promotion of human dignity and social values are now firmly entrenched in the heart of both parties. Both our major parties, as well as Alternattiva Demokratika, belong to families of parties on a European level, all of which, in spite of the differences, make positive contributions to the political spectrum.

Slender majorities
If PN won by a slim relative majority of first preference votes and kept a wafer-thin edge over MLP, neither of the parties emerged particularly victorious. The PN lost its absolute majority; the MLP failed by a narrow margin to edge its way above PN; Alternattiva failed to gain even 1.54% (if 65 seats were allocated by the strictest of proportions) and remains the victim of the electorate’s preference for the stability of a bi-partisan system as opposed to variety; Azzjoni Nazzjonali failed to convince the electorate to take it seriously as a political player. The PN enjoys the majority in parliament, guaranteed by the recent constitutional amendments, and has therefore formed the government. As things stand, it is perhaps a fair enough position – and not unfamiliar to voters throughout most of the years since Independence.

Yet, for the first time since 1971, neither of the two big parties enjoys the absolute majority of first preference votes. In light of this fact, it is good to observe that the constitutional amendments enacted in 1987 and subsequently, important as they may be, only patch up the situation rather than addressing it radically. In recent elections, despite the supposed proportionality of our electoral system, the mismatch of seats and votes occurred in 1981, 1987, 1996 and again in 2008. In 1987, 1996 and this year, the constitutional amendments corrected the situation to give a majority to the PN and MLP, respectively: in other words, with slender majorities, the electoral rules consistently produce anomalous results. In the absence of evidence of substantial and permanent shifts in voter loyalties, the time seems ripe to seriously reconsider our constitutional arrangements, so as to create a system that gives better representation, while respecting the way in which the Maltese electorate expresses itself.

Freedom of choice for voters
The Maltese electorate has been called out on numerous occasions over the last five years: a referendum (2003), two General Elections (2003, 2008), one election of members of the European Parliament (2004), and yearly Local Council elections. It takes no political expert to notice how the voters feel freer to move away from the major parties in contests that are not national parliamentary elections (AD’s 9.33% vote in the MEP election is significant), yet stick to the bi-partisan system in general elections. The message cannot be clearer: the Maltese electorate opts for stability of national government that, under the current conditions, a bi-partisan parliament best assures. In spite of AD’s best efforts, it has remained a victim of the system. But the victim is not only AD: the Maltese electorate too is adversely affected, since voters clearly feel constrained by the system to stick to bi-partisan politics, under pain of perceived instability.

Is there a way out? This is not merely a question of better assuring proportionality in parliament, which needs to be seriously considered. The electorate is giving a clear message that they vote for stability. Such an amendment, good as it may be, will still not suffice to bring more political colour and variety.

The merits and deficiencies of parliamentary government
Our political system is, currently, a parliamentary democracy, based on British practice: an elected House of Representatives where the Government is held by whoever commands the majority of seats (which is why the constitutional amendments were necessary in the first place). In Britain, the system reflects the slow progressive shift of power from the monarch towards Parliament, particularly the Commons.

For better or for worse, the system has served us since independence, and today ours is no longer an emergent, vulnerable democracy. Nevertheless, the parliamentary system has deep-seated limitations: it brings together in an intimate relationship the legislative and executive powers, which give a very strong hand to whoever enjoys the majority. The system does not encourage power sharing. But an ideal government should be as representative of the people as possible, as it is the people as a whole who are sovereign, not just the majority – absolute or relative – which happen to hold power.

Since the introduction of local councils, Malta has witnessed the benefit of sharing power between the national and local levels of government, where partisan politics have to give way to national or local interests. Equally, we should appreciate the importance of all our MEPs, of whichever political persuasion, who join as one voice in speaking for the interests of our country in the European Parliament.


Exploring alternatives

An alternative system of national government could, however, bring the best of what the Maltese electorate may be looking for, a wider representation, but not at the cost of stability. The recipe could be a strong presidential model. In such a model, executive power lies in the hands of a President, elected by direct universal suffrage. The second-round system (as in France) where, in the absence of an absolute majority, the two candidates garnering the highest number of votes face a second round of elections, guarantees that the President enjoys a clear mandate, yet give a wider option in the first round of the election. Such a President may be a guarantor of stable government, as he or she enjoys the people’s direct vote of confidence, rather than parliament’s. It is the President who then appoints the Cabinet, generally from among MPs of their own party, possibly including non-MPs, and even members of other parties (particularly in the absence of a parliamentary majority). In a presidential system, national government enjoys authority in its own right, yet depends on parliament for legislative decisions. The constitution would need to cater very clearly and strictly as to the prerogatives of the different institutions, as to encourage them to co-operate and to complement each other, and to avoid stalemates where one institution is held to ransom by the other.

Legislative authority remains vested in parliament, elected by universal suffrage, following a system similar to the one currently in use. A means of entrenching strict proportionality should be a priority in constitutional reform: the latest election has brought to light the vulnerability of the current system in spite of the amendments, leaving elections at the mercy of manipulation of districts, giving disproportionate numbers of seats. A redesign of Malta’s parliamentary system should guarantee strict proportionality for any party that surpasses a minimum national threshold. One possibility is to follow a priority queue in the allocation of the 65 seats over 13 districts, as proposed by Prof. Anton Buhagiar in 1995; a second option is to elect four MPs per district, as per the current method, and the final 13 to guarantee national proportionality. While maintaining the single transferable vote at district level, which leaves the choice of MPs squarely in the hands of the electorate (rather than party lists), national proportionality could also guarantee that no political opinion that is too small to be elected at district level remains disenfranchised.

Admittedly, judging our current political spectrum, the Presidency would almost certainly go to either of the two major parties. However, parliament is likely to see a more varied political spectrum, and would have to be seriously reckoned with. It would be possible, indeed quite likely considering our slender majorities, for an elected President to be of one party, with another party enjoying majority in Parliament, or possibly none of the major parties enjoying an absolute majority. As parliament already does in so many instances, consensus would have to be reached. If this power-sharing may seem an unlikely prospect in our sharply divided partisan politics, we should recognise how this already takes place, particularly at a local government level where councillors of all parties share in the responsibilities irrespective of who enjoys the majority.

Proposing constitutional change to such a degree is admittedly radical. Such change requires extensive discussion and consideration. If a presidential mode of government, new to Maltese constitutional history, were to be seriously considered, the experience of countries where such systems operate could be translated and applied to the Maltese situation, so that we may learn from their merits (and avoid repeating their mistakes). Our parliament has the authority to review the constitution, even radically, and in a sense may act as a constitutive assembly; while the two-thirds majority required for such radical change guarantees that such changes may only take place through national consensus. However, such constitutional discussions should go beyond parliament to include local government, political parties and other constituted bodies. Ultimately, it is not the government or the two main parties who are sovereign, but the people whom parliament represents.

Josef Mario Briffa SJ is a Jesuit scholastic, currently reading theology at Heythrop College, University of London. He has done much to revive interest in the contribution of the Jesuit Fr Emmanuel Magri in Maltese archaeology at the turn of the 20th century.