No such thing as a ‘wasted’ vote | Carmel Cacopardo

This week, ADPD unveiled its electoral slogan: ‘Green Sweeps Clean’. Coupled with the Maltese version – ‘Xkupa Hadra Tnaddaf – it is clearly a play on the proverb, ‘A new broom sweeps clean’. But given that Alternattiva Demokratika has existed, as a political presence, for over 30 years: so how ‘new’ is this Green broom?

ADPD is as relevant today, as it was when Alternattiva Demokratika was originally founded. Today, everyone is an ‘environmentalist’; everyone declares themselves to be ‘environmentalist’. But when you peel away the outer layer, you start finding a different reality underneath.

That is why [the broom] is ‘Green’: because to us – as members of the Green movement - ecological conservation is the basic yardstick governing all our policies, and in all areas. One example is the current proposal for ‘open spaces’. The Prime Minister, and Environment Minister Aaron Farrugia, have just announced one of these projects: the pedestrianization of St Anne’s Street [Floriana].

At face value, it looks like a good proposal. But when you analyse it more closely, you will find a basic, fundamental defect. This proposal will not remove cars from that area; it will merely ‘hide them’ somewhere out of sight. But if we really want to offer a sustainable alternative, we have the perfect opportunity to do so: we are at the beginning of the transition between fuel-driven vehicles, and electrification.

This is the time to implement a proper transport strategy: whereby the policy of open spaces, and the plan for a [fuel-to-electric] changeover, can be integrated, and merged together. Why? Because our National Transport Strategy tells us that 50% of the voyages we carry out using private vehicles, are for a trip lasting less than 10-15 minutes. In other words, short distances.

The country is small. Everywhere is a short distance away. So the argument is that, with an efficient public transport system – not just on a national, but also regional level – we could do away with a substantial number of our cars. Can we integrate this, too, in the Green open spaces projects?

This brings us to ADPD’s proposals for this election. At the same launch, you also said that your party manifesto is ‘still in the final stages of completion’. Aren’t you leaving it a little late, to reveal your own electoral proposals?

Obviously, I would have preferred it if [the manifesto] was ready a long time ago. But our resources are what they are; they are limited. We are in the final stages of completing it. But what I’ve just been saying about Malta’s transport policy, is nothing new. We have been saying it for a long time…

Yes; but are you confident that people out there would be familiar with these policies? Including young, first-time voters, who have no memory of former elections?

There are those who are familiar, and those who are not familiar enough. But let’s be clear: even if we did have a ready, published manifesto… you know as much as I do, how much people out there actually read political manifestos. To be honest, the advantage of having a published manifesto, is so that journalists such as yourself would be able to look it up, and ask questions about it…

That is precisely why I asked. […] But regardless whether your manifesto is printed, or not: what is ADPD proposing, concretely? Can you tell us, in a few words, what the manifesto will contain?

Our manifesto is effectively a collection of all the positions we have taken, over the past five years. One of the fundamental issues is that this country has been hijacked, by a two-party system that is stifling the national institutions. This is reflected in the quality of governance we have in the country right now. Not just at government level; but also in the regulatory bodies, which are being stifled by people who are very often politically appointed…

At the same time, however, there are various civil society groups that are now saying exactly the same thing…

Yes: that is part of our success, for having put forward these ideas throughout the years; ideas which have now been adopted by civil society. There was a time when we were the only ones pronouncing [these ideas]. But today, we have managed to put across that message to such an extent, that it has been taken up, independently, by a number of civil society organizations…

Don’t you feel, however, that this very success may have robbed ADPD of part of its ‘raison d’etre’: that of being the only political party making those arguments, in the country?

Not really, no. The difference is that we are making those arguments on a political level; and they [NGOs] are making them at the level of civil society. They are two sides of the same coin: which are both essential - independently of each other – but at the end of the day, also complementary…

How, then, do you interpret the fact that ADPD has remained more or less static: i.e., representing roughly 1.9% of the electorate? With so many people now openly agreeing with you: shouldn’t ADPD be performing better at the polls?

The difficulty is that, sometimes, people tend to get cold feet. Bear in mind that, in different elections, our support-levels have been different too. This is something that happens everywhere in the world, not just in Malta. People tend to assign different priorities, to different elections. So far, our best election result was 2013: when we got 1.8%. Our current polling is slightly better, at 1.9%. Generally – and I hope it remains the same, this time – the polling rate, in our respect, turns out to be slightly lower than the result we effectively get.

Earlier you mentioned ‘cold feet’; i.e., that people may be ‘afraid’ to vote ADPD. Now: I remember the 1992 election – the first-ever contested by AD – and there was certainly a lot of pressure along the lines that ‘a vote for AD is a vote for Labour’, etc. But times have changed since then. Are those concerns still valid today? Do you feel that the same pressure still exists?

So far, it doesn’t seem to have started… yet. But generally, that attitude only manifests itself when there are indications that the big parties are close to each other, in the polls. Obviously, the fact that they are not currently close to each other, could be helpful in our regard. Because the element of fear might be lessened…

This is also because our electoral system attaches a lot of weight to first-count votes. At the end of the day, Parliament is a reflection of first-count votes… but only when no more than two parties are elected. Because as I said also at the launch: the proportionality mechanism [whereby the Constitution supplies additional seats, to form a House majority] applies only to the two main parties – and it has been applied, in different elections – but it doesn’t apply, in our case.

And I’ve already given notice: if there is need, I will go to the Constitutional Court to challenge the proportionality mechanism…

It’s not just ADPD that is affected by that, however. Unlike previous elections – where AD tended to be the only other party on the ballot sheet – there are now several smaller parties: a fact which can only makes it likelier, for the mechanism to actually be applied…

Well, the indications in all previous elections have always been that we are the front-runners, of the third parties…

… do you feel that’s still the case today, though?

That’s what the polls indicate. Now: I don’t know what might happen in the future. Our result could be better than that; it could be worse. A lot of things might happen, by election day. What I can say, however, is that if we manage to elect a single seat in this election… then the proportionality mechanism will not work. And if we get roughly the same result as usual, or slightly better – for instance, 5,000, 6,000, 7,000 votes – but don’t elect any seats… then all those votes will end up not being represented in Parliament.

They’d be wasted, you mean…

No, they would not be wasted. I will do my utmost, to make sure they are NOT wasted. But what I really meant is that those votes get discarded, by an electoral system that gives more weight to first-count votes.

But I am insisting, as from now, that when the readjustment calculations are made, [those 5-7000 votes] must be taken into consideration.   The probability, however, is that the Electoral Commission will not take them into consideration, because their hands are tied by electoral law…

Isn’t there a precedent, though? When the Labour government challenged the proportionality mechanism in court, over the 2017 result, it used very similar arguments to the ones you are making now…

The arguments were not all that similar, no. At the time, the government argued that the Opposition should not have been awarded any extra seats, because there already was a third party in parliament. But technically, that wasn’t true. Technically, they [independent MPs Marlene and Godfrey Farrugia] were still part of the Nationalist Party; having been elected on the PN ticket. That is, in fact, why Labour lost that case…

My argument, on the other hand, is that: if the final result is not proportional, and the votes that we gain are not taken into consideration, in the readjustment… I will go to the Constitutional Court for satisfaction, and ask for a remedy that respects [the principle of] proportionality. I want to be clear about this, from now.

On a different, but related note: ADPD’s entire platform is rooted in the concept of a coalition, whereby different parties forge alliances through compromise. So… why is Malta’s ‘third party force’ still so fragmented? Why, for instance, are three small parties – ADPD, Volt, and Arnold Cassola – all competing against each other, on the same districts?

Unfortunately, there is fragmentation. And in the case of Arnold Cassola… you know why, too. Cassola wasn’t expelled from the party; he left… [because] he finds various policy issues objectionable. But I cannot hijack democracy for anybody, in the party. It was a decision he took for himself; nobody imposed it upon him.

Given, however, that the disagreement only really concerned one issue – abortion – couldn’t some form of compromise be reached? Did you try building bridges, for instance?

All I can say, to that, is: I have not contributed anything – anything at all - to the burning of those bridges.

Fair enough. But assuming, for argument’s sake, that you do manage to elect a seat in this election: how do you envisage the possibilities that would arise, through ADPD’s presence in parliament? What sort of alliances – and compromises – would you be willing to make?

Let me start with number one: the roadmap, is our electoral manifesto…

But… if nobody’s seen that, yet…

Now, don’t keep harping on about that. As I said before, our electoral manifesto contains all the policies we have been talking about so far. It’s unfair of you, to talk that way. Because even the Labour Party – and just look how long it’s been talking about things – hasn’t published its electoral manifesto, either.  For all its talk of ‘new economic policies’; it still doesn’t have anything down in writing. And nor has the PN [at the time of this interview].

The reality is that no electoral manifesto is ever published, at such an early stage: less than one week into the campaign […]

All the same, however, our policies are generally well-known. We are associated with various things – mainly, the environment – but we are also the only party to speak out against, for example, the unbridled application of Facial-Recognition Technology; we are the only party to insist on an end to the Golden Passport Scheme… because both Labour and PN are in favour: they only disagree on certain minor details, here and there. We, on the other hand, have been consistently against the scheme from the moment it was launched: in 2014.

So when I say that the ‘roadmap is our manifesto’: it means that there are some fundamental issues that, to us, are too important to change – and people out there know well what those issues are - and there are other, less important issues on which we would be willing to compromise.