Do the Maltese want a third party?

We have been down this road before. I remember clearly the excitement and anticipation when Alternativa Demokratika moved from being a pressure group to actually contesting the elections in 1992. To say it was a breath of fresh air was an understatement, because at the time, many had already seen enough of the PN in government to realise the way things were going to be if they were elected for a second term.

The Labour Party, which was still led by Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici at the time, was in a shambles and the undemocratic way it behaved when in government was still too fresh in people’s minds.

For years, it had always been taken for granted that you had to be affiliated with either one or the other of the two traditional parties, and those yearning for something different, and the ‘min mhux maghna kontra taghna’ refrain, welcomed AD with open arms. But despite valiant efforts in one election after another, not even AD, which seemed to tick all the right boxes for those who cared about the environment and believed in social justice, could manage to break through the stranglehold of Labour and PN.

Suffice to say that its respectable result of 1.7% of the votes in 1992 was only surpassed in the last election of 2013, when it obtained 1.8% of the votes. The only time that AD had a serious chance of representing its voters was in Malta’s first European Parliament elections in 2004, when Arnold Cassola narrowly missed being elected as an MEP with 9.33% of the votes.

In the 24 years in between, support has fluctuated, and has often been openly sabotaged, such as when the PN and its supporters launched the infamous “wasted vote” campaign in which they urged people not to vote for AD (not even a Number 2 vote) because it would mean another Labour government.

Labour has shown itself to be liberal on civil issues (whether out of conviction or political expediency) but those who voted for real change in the way the country is run have been shortchanged.

When in 2008, Labour voters stayed away in droves and the PN only managed to scrape through to win a relative majority by the skin of its teeth, AD was “blamed” for almost costing the PN the election. But the fact remains that many disillusioned voters preferred to stay away rather than vote for a third party – 2008 represented the lowest voter turnout for Malta (93%) since 1971.

But enough statistics. The crunch of the matter is, do the Maltese want a third party or not? History seems to suggest that they don’t, but of course, everything has to be taken in context. We are definitely living in a different time, under a Labour government which seems to be anything but left-wing (let alone socialist). Money is the new god, developers and construction magnates dictate everything, while everything that can be sold, is up for grabs. There have been positive measures such as free childcare but somehow it always comes back to making more money (rather than, for example, an improved quality of life by making it possible for one of the parents to stay home in the first year of their child’s life such as happens in Finland). Labour has shown itself to be liberal on civil issues (whether out of conviction or political expediency) but those who voted for real change in the way the country is run have been shortchanged.

And while the PN seems to be mouthing all the right platitudes one can hardly blame the electorate for looking at the Opposition with a cynical eye and saying, “yeah, right”. They all know how to say the right things when they’re on the opposite side of the bench, don’t they? Meanwhile, on civil liberties, the PN is still fighting an internal tug-of-war between its moderate, liberal supporters and its more conservative grassroots.

On the face of it, there is definitely a gap to be filled by a potential party which reflects that part of the population which does not justify everything one of the two big parties do just because they have always been Labour or PN supporters, and will remain so “until the day they die”.

According to yesterday’s news report, the new centre-left party which is in the wings, spearheaded by now independent MP Marlene Farrugia who has broken ranks with the PL, is currently holding talks with AD and various other interested individuals. The party’s aims are to promote good governance, accountability and transparency in public life. Music to our ears, of course, and words we have heard before – a mere three years ago in fact.

The perennial problem is whether this platform will get enough voters to vote for you. While there are many who are openly disgusted by the behaviour of the Labour government, will that disgust manifest itself into a vote for a third party in that little curtained off cubicle come voting day? AD, despite always finding a wave of public sympathy in its relentless campaigning to protect the environment, has never managed to translate that sympathy into enough votes for it to matter. I have always found it to be a chicken and egg situation: people question whether their vote will even matter, so they don’t vote, so AD never got in.

Then of course, there is another important aspect which has to be factored in: the public face of the new party is someone who has switched parties so many times it is hard to keep track, and is often accused of being self-serving. Would Marlene Farrugia have turned so fiercely against the PL had she been given a ministry, many often ask? You cannot blame people for being so skeptical, after all we have other examples of politicians who switched sides after they were not “given” what they wanted once their party was elected. As an electorate we tend to be pretty jaded, because it is hard not to be suspicious of ulterior motives and hidden agendas everywhere we look – and more often than not, we are proved right.

That is why for a third party to make any kind of impact it has to really capture the public imagination with concrete proposals on issues which people passionately care about, which affect their daily lives, fronted by someone with wide public appeal who does not come with too much baggage. And on the day, voters have to be motivated enough to actually make the conscious effort to vote for that party. Failing that, I’m afraid we will be stuck with the status quo.