AD’s threshold is too low, but they are right on reform

Alternattiva Demokratika is right in taking up this issue because ultimately such a reform will empower the electorate to vote according to conviction rather than limiting itself to choosing the lesser of two evils.
It could also give the electorate the choice of voting for small parties willing to form coalitions to put any of the big parties in check.

After nearly half a century of single-party government (which did a lot of good but also entrenched their networks of patronage in all aspects of Maltese life) this could be welcome.

Where I disagree with AD is their proposal of a 2.5% threshold. This sounds too low even by European standards. It is true that countries like the Netherlands and Israel have similar thresholds but these examples could be counterproductive to AD’s argument that coalitions can actually work and bring stability. Using the German model (based on a 5% threshold), which gave this country stability and effective governments for the past decades, would make more sense.

Perhaps AD is proposing a low threshold fully knowing that the other parties might favour an even higher threshold than 5%.

Another crucial aspect of electoral reform which is overlooked is what happens to votes for parties who do not enter parliament. My proposal would be to do away completely with the notion of handing power to the party with the highest number of first count votes. Instead we should give value to the second preferences expressed by voters who give their first choice to parties who failed to reach the national threshold and their second preference to a party which made it to parliament.

In my opinion these votes should be transferred entirely to parties which surpass the agreed threshold. A similar mechanism is the Alternative Vote System (AVS) currently being proposed in the UK. In this way third party voters who award a second preference to a main party will have a say in determining the choice of government if their party fails to get a seat. All votes will count by the end of the process.

Obviously this would require constitutional changes which require a two-thirds majority, something which I consider highly unlikely given the self-interest of the two parties in parliament. Perhaps a referendum could be the only way for progress on this issue. Ultimately even to get there (as the British experience shows), a third party would have to make it to parliament (and government) through the present system.