Alleanza Bidla claims 'undemocratic practices', says report made to OSCE

Political party Alleanza Bidla (AB) has requested election monitors from the Organization for Security and Co-Operation in Europe (OSCE) to investigate Malta, claiming to have “found and proven that the electoral process itself has been corrupted.” 

In a statement announcing the request this afternoon, the party said the electoral system favours the PN and PL, who it argues, “are offering the same ideology and have lost the core beliefs that they were founded on.”

AB says it "was formed to give the electorate a wider choice and not just harmful neo-liberalism offered by the two. That is no choice at all. Through increased electoral competition, Alleanza wants to force the traditional parties to listen to and respect the will of the voters and not just look after themselves.”

The OSCE is an organisation which monitors elections to ensure that they are free and fair. 

AB says the fact that the organisation accepted their request to observe the elections “shows the level of serious concern by the EU on the whole process.”

AB raised seven objections to the OSCE on issues which include the allocation of time by the Broadcasting Authority for political broadcasts and the Authority’s lack of control on political stations.

The party had previously unsuccessfully filed legal action against the Electoral Commission for not allowing its candidates to contest the elections on all districts. The party today observed that in a separate decision by the same court it was held that the Electoral Commission had “illegally prevented a candidate from standing on the districts that she wanted to contest on as permitted by law even though there were 2 very clear court rulings on the same day.”  

In that case, the Court of Appeal had ruled that AB candidate Elizabeth Claire Mikkelsen's nomination had been unjustly denied and had ordered the continuation of the process of Mikkelsen's nomination.

However, despite this judgment AB said today that “the Court of Appeal then failed to defend the rule of law once again by putting her case off for hearing sine die, rendering any possible justice ineffective .”