PN’s election change ‘closes door’ to outsider bids for leader

Unpublicised changes to the Nationalist Party’s leadership election system mean that outsiders with core opposition within party ranks – as in the case of former leader Adrian Delia – would have a more difficult time winning in the future, MaltaToday has learned.

The PN’s General Council will be utilising a single transferible vote system for the first time when selecting the two candidates to present to party members in the next election for party leader.

To date, if more than two candidates contested a leadership election, General Council members used a first-past-the-post system to select the two final candidates, by indicating their one preference on their ballot sheet. The two candidates with the most votes would then be voted upon by all eligible party members in the General Convention.

Under the new system, General Council members will now be able to indicate their preference for all the candidates contesting the leadership race, by marking 1, 2, 3 etc. on the ballot sheet.

A senior party official confirmed the changes in the election method were approved and adopted by the General Council.

“The single preference vote system used in the past could produce a deceptive majority, in that a candidate might have secured the first preference of a number of council members but would not necessarily have been a second or third or fourth choice for others,” he said.

“The single transferable vote system will be fairer, ensuring that the two candidates presented the party members are truly representative of the preferences of the General Convention.”

This is correct in that the STV is a system designed to form consensus behind the most popular candidates and to avoid wasting votes.

Each General Council member will now mark their ballot for the most preferred candidate and will also be able to mark back-up preferences.

A vote goes to the voter’s first preference if possible, but if the first preference is eliminated, instead of being thrown away, the vote is transferred to a back-up preference, with the vote being assigned to the voter’s second, third, or lower choice if possible.

The least popular candidate will be eliminated and their votes will be transferred based on voters’ marked back-up preferences.

Eliminations, and vote transfers where applicable, will continue until there are only two candidates remaining, at which point they will go on to face a party-wide vote.

In the past, most often than not, the candidate with the least votes in the General Council election would immediately withdraw from the race, prompting another election among the remaining candidates, and so on until only two candidates remained.

“This was time consuming and exhaustive,” a party official said. “With the STV, we will ensure that all members’ preferences are actually accounted for.”

But many are concerned that under the new system, it will be difficult – if not impossible – for an outsider with no party-wide support to make it to the final ballot sheet.

“With council members now voting multiple preferences, they will surely choose established party officials, MPs or insiders over any outsiders,” one disgruntled General Council member, who sits on the party’s sectional committee on the 11th district, said.

“If this system was in place in 2017, the party would have managed to keep Adrian Delia out of facing the vote by the tesserati, since council members who opposed him would have given their preferences to the other three candidates leaving him only with the first-count votes from his supporters.”

Another general council member agreed that it would be more difficult for an outsider to become leader in the future unless they enjoyed party-wide consensus or were publicly backed by a number of senior party officials and standing MPs.

“No wonder no one seems to be talking about these changes,” she said. “This is a Machiavellian move, aimed at closing the door to dissenting outsiders without appearing to block their candidature in any manner.”