Although it is obvious that the Labour Party achieved a landslide win in this round of local council elections, the biggest winner seems to be the non-voter. Almost half the people entitled to vote decided they'd rather not bother at all, and this is a big message in itself. The political class needs to do a serious evaluation of the reasons for this very low turn-out. Some points to think about:
- If we leave out the usual opportunists (those who by not voting expect to threat the party in government to be given a job, promotion, or whatever else they dream is their right to get), it seems that an increasing big chunk of voters is getting disillusioned by the political class. For these voters, neither of the two main parties is offering anything new. They feel caught between a rock and a hard place, caught in between two parties who keep acting as reactive followers of public trends instead of pro-active leaders who persuade followers that their philosophy is the best option.
- Many would argue that these absentees will vote when a general election comes. While this applies for most of them, the trend from the last general election shows that even on a national level the degree of absenteeism is increasing. One cannot assume that if a general election is called, these absentees will definitely vote, for the same reasons mentioned in point 1. They might be fed up of voting for the rock who has become happy to be slightly better than the hard place.
- Some interpret this as a message that people are fed up of parties contesting local council elections and instead would prefer local councils free of political interference. It is true that many voters are fed up of the partisan political rivalry within local councils, but the problem is not the involvement of parties in these councils. It is the way some of the councillors elected serve and function. Personally, I prefer candidates contesting on party tickets than having all of them contesting independently. Parties are after all the political expression of democracy. Elected councillors need something to unite them and drive them forward, and if it weren't parties it would be local areas or band clubs, leading to more piques and ego-driven agendas than the unity instilled by the party ticket. It is up to the councillors to rise up above petty partisan politics and base discussions on the common interest of their locality.
- Last point: have the PN and PL become so indistinguishable, identical in both values and ideology (or lack of it), that people see no difference between one and the other, causing them to lose faith in the political system? Is the general feeling of the 'floating' voter that "it doesn't matter who is in power, they are both the same"? This should spell warning alarms for the PN. If such a feeling prevails, voters will end up voting for change just for change's sake. And if people see no difference between its policies and the vacuum offered by Labour, then there's something really wrong with its policies that is not persuading the discerning voter who does not vote by automatic colour-following. And that needs to be looked into.
I would like to suggest another observation Mark.
ReplyDeleteLocal councils elections are always ending up a battle ground for each party to test the pulse of the electorate on a national level and I fear that people might be getting fed up of this. The spinning about a council or another, because at every election there is always a council to pick on by each party, is making people sick and as a boomerang effect it might be that people will loose faith in the local councils and so they just do not bother to go to vote.
I too hold that it is very difficult to have party free local council elections. Malta is a very small country, sympathies are known. It is better having somebody officially on a party list than having the suspect that someone is pulling a party line.
On a positive note party boundaries in these elections get hazy, you see it in localities where in a general elections they are predominantly blue or red while the local council is the opposite. This is the real expression of a democracy and one augurs that we have much more of this.
The weather on election day was really bad.
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