Sant: ‘I disagree with referenda’

The former Labour leader who refused to accept the result of the 2003 EU referendum that approved Malta’s membership of the EU, said he disagrees with the use of referenda “in the running of our political affairs”.

Alfred Sant, poised to be Labour’s biggest vote-winner in the next European Parliament elections, has chipped in on a debate on referenda after the Campaign for the Abolition of Spring Hunting filed a 45,000-signature petition to call for an abrogative referendum.

Yesterday, a TV evangelist said he could rustle enough signatures to secure the 10% of the electorate’s consent for a referendum that abrogates the civil unions law and gay adoptions.

“I never was in favour of a political system that functions on the back of referenda (perhaps with the exception of Switzerland, where they have long been institutionalised and are therefore probably run with fairness). But in most parliamentary democracies one finds that referenda are used mainly as a tool by which to manipulate public opinion,” Sant wrote in his blog.

“Effectively, a referendum can be used to secure laws and regulations that go against the interests of this or that minority. This becomes clearer if means of persuasion are being deployed by hidden power sources to promote a given outcome.”

Sant said that it should be a government elected by the people on political programmes that effect changes.

“As is happening in Malta now, a referendum can become a tool by which one part of society seeks to override another part. In this way, a method which many consider to be democratic, ends up as a tactical move in a social confrontation that is futile when not actually vindictive.”

As Opposition leader, Sant led his party’s campaign against EU membership from 1998 to 2003, and also claimed that the EU referendum approving accession had been lost by the government.

The referendum was won by 53.6% of votes against 46.4% of a total of 270,633 voters. Another 27,000 eligible voters did not cast their ballot in the referendum. Sant did not concede defeat, saying that only 48% of all registered voters had voted yes, and that a majority had opposed membership by voting no, abstaining or cancelling their ballot.