Green sweeps clean: ADPD unveils campaign slogan

ADPD - The Green Party unveiled its campaign logo and slogan for the 2022 election campaign, opting for "Green Sweeps Clean" (Xkupa ħadra tnaddaf).

"The country needs a good cleaning," ADPD Chairman Carmel Cacopardo said. "A lack of good governance gives us a bad reputation and leads to bad administrative decisions like the sale of passports, a magnet for whoever is looking at jurisdictions where financial ethics are lax."

He added that current electoral laws discriminate against third parties like ADPD. Nonetheless, he is appealing for the public's first-preference votes to be handed to ADPD candidates.

There are 10 candidates running on the ADPD ticket, all of which are contesting on two districts. 

MaltaToday surveys estimate between a 1.5% to 1.9% result for the Green Party, close to their best result in 2013 which saw them receive 1.8% of votes.

Cacopardo said that the party will consider challenging the election result if ADPD wins a reasonable percentage of votes but fails to elect a candidate to parliament.

He insisted that the constitutional proportionality mechanism should kick in if such a situation were to occur.

The existing mechanism ensures strict proportionality between the votes obtained at first count and seats in the House. However, it applies only if two parties are elected to parliament.

Indeed, the Labour Party tried contesting the Electoral Commission's 2017 decision to grant the PN two extra seats.

It argued that the PN's 28 elected MPs at the time included Partit Demokratiku leader Marlene Farrugia, who had contested the election on the PN ticket as part of the Forza Nazzjonali coalition. Therefore, the proportionality mechanism shouldn't have kicked in as there were two minority parties in parliament, not one.

Last year, ADPD launched constitutional proceedings to challenge the validity of the electoral system, arguing that it discriminates against third parties. 

The proceedings were a reaction to a recent corrective mechanism adopted by parliament which would allocate additional parliamentary seats to reduce gender imbalance. 

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