Ditch campaign spending limits

I had intended to write about this for some time and a post about ditching single transferable vote (STV) and an excellent (as usual) op-ed from Times columnist Mark-Anthony Falzon provided the final push. This time it’s about ditching the limitation on campaign spending. For two reasons. First, in our particular case, because it is ridiculously low. Second, as a matter of principle, limitations on one’s freedom to express onself a fortiori as part of an electoral campaign should be a very rare exception, not the rule.

First of all, the relevant provision (Section 46) from the Electoral (Polling) Ordinance:

Subject to such exception as may be allowed in pursuance of this Ordinance, no sum shall be paid and no expense shall be incurred by a candidate at an election or his election agent, whether before, during, or after an election on account of or in respect of the conduct or management of such election, in excess of one thousand and three hundred and ninety-seven euro and sixty two cents (1,397.62):

Rev. Joe Borg, who has commented on this on a couple of occasions, points out:

A number of politicians are under the impression that this limit only starts when the elections are called and applies for the 30 days of a campaign. Nowhere in the law is there that sort of stipulation, though I hasten to add that I don’t know whether there were any specific cases in court which gave some form of interpretation or another.

That’s because the law is intended to be well and truly punitive. Some leeway is allowed for the European Parliament election with the limit going up to €18,169.08 which is not enough to send one leaflet by ordinary mail to all the households in your constituency. And while one may claim that the Electoral Ordinance was enacted in other times when the value of the lira was higher than what it was today and if lawmakers can be accused of anything it’s neglect the limitation on expenditure for EP elections was imposed by a legal notice published in 2004.

Why do we continue to actively impose such a ludicrous restriction? Falzon has an explanation:

So why pick on money? I suspect it has to do with an unfortunate cultural aversion to money. Like sex, even as we all want more of it, we persist in thinking it’s evil. The less tentative answer is that expenditure can be controlled while charisma, softened consonants, chiselled features, and the shape of down below cannot. It is also an answer which leaves us at square one, that is, it is impossible for each of us to have an equal chance of being elected.

Falzon then gives some examples why recognition for what he stands for helped Norman Lowell and not Mary Gauci and why Simon Busuttil raced far ahead of his colleagues in votes when he had not done the same regarding spending.

That’s probably true considering that we’re ready to close an eye to a hugely unfairer advantage than money. I’m pretty sure Attard-Montalto outspent Marlene Mizzi. But what did it was not money, which in the first count left the standing MEP five thousands votes behind Labour’s newcomer, but the alphabet. Thanks to that, in the twenty-sixth count, Attard-Montalto received the lion’s share of Claudette Abela-Baldacchino’s votes, putting him in pole position. At electiontime it’s always better to be an Abdilla than a monied Zerafa.

Falzon makes another important point: wealth is entwined with social life to the point that a candidate can hardly be said to be spending money on, say, entertaining friends, without that being campaigning. Falzon emphaises the inevitability but the point he makes also go to show unreasonable is a law which, while superficially may regulate campaigning, also intrudes on our social and personal lives and our right to spend our money in the way we like.

Considering that in Japan they have a silly prohibition on door-to-door campaigning we should count ourselves lucky.

Think global, act local

Bloggers have been chipping in on the future of the Green Party following its abysmal performance at the EP election earlier this month. Most of them are present or former officials or, at least, sympathisers so one cannot doubt their bona fides when they give advice.

Most of what they propose mistakes means for ends, not unlike Nationalists’ attempts at soul-searching, which assume that doing things differently will result in outcomes which are both different and desirable. That, as everyone should know, is not necessarily the case.

But even if it were, that can, at most, be described as some sort of tactics and strategy which a party in such a parlous state would need. The only proposal which comes close to being the latter (except, that is, for Michael Briguglio’s suggestion to go “radical”) is to have the Party build a strong presence at the level of local government where electing representatives has higher political and mathematical chances and, having built the foundations (or, to be greener, grown grassroots), get a fighting chance to score some success in general election.

That might be good approach. But the Greens have been there before. In the first ever electoral cycle of local councils (1993-94) the Greens managed to elect no less than eight local councillors: in Attard, Balzan, Birkirkara, Ħamrun, in the Labour stronghold of Pembroke and even south of the Maltese Weisswuräkwator in Fgura.

Now, I’m in no position to know whether this was the result of a deliberate strategic choice of the Party. But when you compare the number of candidates fielded by the Party in the 1993-94 cycle — 30 candidates in localities all across the country — to the 16 candidates fielded in the latest cycle (2007-2009) standing almost exclusively in “favourable” localities you realise that then the Party was trying harder.

With the wisdom of some hindsight we know that the Greens’ presence at a local level was not of much consequence. The Greens failed to make any impact in the 1996 general election and were decimated in local elections in the subsequent electoral cycles. Change of strategy? Possibly. But it is more likely that here was a case where the national impinged on the local. The Greens’ 1993-94 local successes followed a comfortable Nationalist general election victory in 1992 and their subsequent defeats followed (or just preceded) a Nationalist defeat in the general election in 1996.

An important thing happened in the last EP election. Until now the fact that Labour “won” local and European elections not because it attracted votes but because would-be Nationalist voters stayed at home, gave some justified hope to the governing Party that it’s supporters could be counted upon come general election day. This time round Labour won unequivocally. True, an EP election victory is not immediately translatable into a general election victory but this time Labour’s case of a Party attractive to voters will be stronger. That means that that is less opportunity for the Greens to act as some sort of “half-way house” if, come 2013, voters desert the Nationalist Party.

That may not be a certitude but it’s a liklihood nonetheless. Which adds to the urgency of James’ call for the Party to divest itself of the role it has played for the last two decades or, rather, for the period the Nationalists were in government.

Of course, that it has acted in this role for so long will make it difficult to step out of . Briguglio’s call for more “radicalism”, whatever that means, is hardly a receipe for expanding the Party’s voter base enough to take more serious jolts than the one received some weeks ago. So while it is good to see someone like Carmel Cacopardo so sanguine about the result, the Green Party current predicament is probably rosy in comparison to a post-Nationalist scenario.

Ditch STV

Following my post on how this EP election has pulled the plug on the Greens’ perennial complaint about how the electoral system disadvantages them, a commenter made the point that, still, the electoral system needs to be reformed.

Agreed, and I take the opportunity to say how. There is still reason to change the single transferable vote (STV) system at all levels of election: local, national and European. Reasons? First, it can still result in mathematical anomalies. Not all these anomalies will necessarily result in serious consequences (as was in the 1981 general election) but they are still the source of unfair outcomes. Second, STV is unnecessarily complicated. That might sound as a purely aesthetic reason but I believe that the simpler the system the more transparent the process.

Two premises need addressing. The first — and the most controversial — is to prohibit cross-party transfers. STV’s most important count is the last one when it becomes known who are the representatives elected. This is completely at odds with every single Maltese’s view on which is the most important count: the first. The evidence is all over the place: in 1981 the Nationalists protested the fact that the technical and political outcome of the final count was different from the first and in 2009 Labour is celebrating a victory of 54 to 40 percent of the first preference votes not 4 to 2 MEPs.

This was, in my view, the greatest shortcoming of the 1994 Gonzi report on electoral reform. In its aim to retain the same way of voting but with a different method of counting the commission which drew up the report proposed a system which had two irreconcilable features: proportional representation based on first preference votes and the possibility that these votes move to other parties (thus disrupting the original proportionality) in subsequent counts.

As the suggestion to cross-voting was a prominent over at J’Accuse in the run-up to the election I will take some time to address this feature of STV. Jacques suggested to readers to give their first preference to the Greens’ Cassola, second to Labour’s Mizzi or Grech and third to Nationalist Demicoli. The reason given was that ideally try to ensure that Malta has representatives in three EP groups, in this case the Greens, the Socialists and the People’s Party.

Jacques is wrong mathematically (he also gives the wrong reasons for suggesting a higher preference to Labour candidate than a Nationalist candidate but I will not go into that). STV is not the Eurovision Song Contest where you give douze points to one candidate, ten to another and eight to another (which, incidentally, is the central feature of another preferential system, the “Borda count“). You see, it’s called single transferable vote for a reason. Jacques’ vote could not have contributed to electing more than one candidate: it would move from Cassola to Mizzi only if Cassola was eliminated from the race or if Cassola was elected and Jacques’ vote was part of the surplus (i.e. in excess and not needed by Cassola to be elected).

If Jacques concern was electing an MEP in as many groupings as possible he could have equally voted exclusively for the candidates of the Greens or Labour or the Nationalists and the mathematical chances would have been the same. Knowing from past experience and from polls that the Labour and Nationalist Party would have definitely elected at least one MEP, Jacques could have voted for Cassola and Ebejer-Arqueros only and his original aim would still have been achived. The restriction on cross-party voting would not have altered any of his ultimate intentions.

Cross-party transfers are an unnecessary complication which only stands in the way of national proportionality and serves as a source of possible anomalies (see here and here for examples with regards to casual elections, by way of mentioning just one). Prohibiting them would be one huge step ahead. But here’s a second: end even intra-party transfers. Yeah, that’s right let’s ditch the preferential system completely. Why? Because it is a complete waste of time.

Professor John C. Lane who has studied Maltese STV wrote an essay on the matter. His conclusion? That “STV vote transfers create results which, to a remarkable degree, a simpler process could also have achieved” because most candidates who are in the lead in the first count eventually are elected. The outcome of this year’s EP election adds justification to another speculation: that when candidates in the lead in the first count fail to be elected it is thanks to their rank on the ballot sheet which in Malta is determined — very unfairly — by the alphabetical ordering of their surnames.

So there you have it. Voters vote simply by putting the mark, any mark, next to the name of one candidate. Votes are counted and parties are allocated seats proportionately which are then filled by the candidates for that party who have the most votes. Counting votes would not take days and can even be made electronic (the counting, not the voting) in that the technology that recognises a mark is simpler and, therefore, cheaper than one which has to recognise the myriad ways in which voters write their “1″s and their “7″s across party lines.

We woz right

The results of an election are archived and so it’s time for MaltaToday to pat itself on the back about its “spot-on” pre-electoral surveys. Labour’s final tally was pretty close to the limit of the margin of error in the survey but, rest assured, it could have been a different thing altogether and the paper would have found something to explain why it was still right along the way.

Which, by the way, also makes the EMCS survey carried out in the Sunday Times the week before the election accurate. MaltaToday ran the story — on its front page — that the man behind it was Stefano Mallia, a close collaborator and business partner of Simon Busuttil. Shock. Scandal. The Nationalist strategy behind the survey was revealed: the party was deliberately trying to make the results look better for Labour so as to get out its apathetic vote.

Then it dawned on the paper that EMCS’ survey gave Labour only one percent more (and, it turned out, was one percent more accurate) than its own survey. But still it was unconvinced because there’s always some Nationalists pefidry if you speculate hard enough. And then it turned out that the EMCS survey gave the Greens a much lower figure — which, again, proved to be accurate — and the paper that’s run by a publishing house that’s like the political retirement home of former officials and candidates of the Green Party cried foul.

Post hoc, the paper offers an explanation for the Cassola “fluke”. Only the statistical “fluke” mind you: how lowering the bar for the Greens could have aided the Nationalist cause was never explained. The important thing is that MediaToday papers never get it wrong. And that if Richard Cachia-Caruana gets sent to the European Commission in November someone else — in this case, Simon Busuttil — will fill in the role of the paper’s pet hate.

The also-rans

Maltastar reports that Green Party chair Arnold Cassola was perplexed when asked by a Net TV journalist if he thought that emulating Labour had been the wrong formula. Really? I mean, was he the only person not to notice? In any case, it should not have come as a surpire. The wheels had come off the Greens’ campaign long before.

It all started on the wrong foot by choosing the Party chair to appear on the ballot paper. But it was evident that things were going wrong when, for whatever reason, the campaign changed tack late in the day. The trans-European slogan of “Energy, Experience, Europe” with which the Maltese Greens started their campaign was ditched in favour of “Yes, we can”. It was dull but other Green Paries did fine with it. Our Greens then came with something else: “Yes, we can”. If the first slogan required little thinking the second betrayed a sense of desperation in getting hold of the first thing that came to mind while struggling uphill.

Thing started going really pear-shaped when the Party decided to become some sort of lighter version of the Labour Party. Vote for the Greens ”to send government a strong message”, Cassola said in the final week. Er, where had we heard that before? And if sending a message is the issue how could it be stronger the voting for the stronger Party promising to do so? In the end even references to the “Green New Deal” disappeared (while Cassola spoke, for example of the Delimara power station) as the Green chairman proudly announced that they’re for a “Social Europe”. You’d half expected him to announce that his will be the name right below Abela-Baldacchino’s on the ballot sheet.

The result was what it was. It should be an eye-opener for at least two reasons. First, it shows the Greens’ 2004 result could very well be an isolated episode and how damaging the Party’s complacency and the over-confidence were in subsequent years despite flunking electoral tests on both a local and national level. Second, the Party has one excuse less: the electoral system. No electoral system with its ”anointing” of the runner-up well behind the quota could have been more advantageous to the Greens. They failed a singular opportunity which is unlikely to appear ever again.

With it is also buried a type of argument which says that, while it is true that the Greens’ showing in general elections is poor to deserve of itself parliamentary representation, a more advantageous system could — hypothetically — attract more voters. Well, here was such an election which, in addition, had none of the high stakes of a general election and none of the fear that voting Green meant aiding another Party to power and still …

Still, the Party is not deterred … in blaming the electoral system. The MaltaToday interviewer rightly asked the Party Secretary General why … there was a national quota this time around. The reply was that “we still have a block-vote culture and that is part of the system”. Galea goes on to complain that he is yet to see one of the bigger parties promoting the benefits of cross voting and that until Saturday morning, people were still asking him whether cross voting would invalidate their votes. Which means that the problem is not the electoral system but that each Party takes care of its own. The concept should not be to strange of the Greens: in 2003 even when EU membership was at stake, they still campaigned for first preference votes, risking Malta’s membership.

And if there are people who are not sure if cross-voting invalidates the vote there are many more who know the correct answer. Quite a few of them in fact gave their first preference to Norman Lowell and, despite not being exactly political brethren, continued with their preferences on the Greens.

Well, what difference would it have made, anyway? Cassola started with over five thousand votes. Cuschieri, last to be “elected”, made it with close to thirty thousand. Still some way off, even with whatever number of later preferences you can expect to draw. The Green Party may not be dead after this election although it is still to be seen whether it will be back from its “also-ran” status. What’s definitly dead and gone is the electoral system excuse and the reason to be indignant about it.

Post-Electoral

It’s over and Labour won handily. Yes, the fourth MEP is only thanks to an act of unprecedented stupidity from id-Dar Centrali effectively throwing away the possibility of a third Nationalist seat. Yes, Labour’s vote tally this year is less than what it was only last year. But then in a general election – for this is what everyone really cares about – Labour has only to stay one vote ahead of the Nationalists to win.

Judging by the Muscat’s campaigning alone the success is well and truly deserved. The Labour leader is almost all that his predecessor wasn’t: he has charisma, he is at ease with people and he has none of the bitterness and paranoia that characterised Sant’s attitude post-1998.

Muscat has also dropped some baggage he can do without. He’s less of a One News journalist; the failure of Abela-Baldacchino’s and Bedingfield’s bids goes to show how that image does not find much favour outside Labour’s core. And his four years’ experience as an MEP and familiarity with big shots in the Party of European Socialists made him perceived as less of a eurosceptic, another image whose lack of “pull” these days was demostated by Ellul-Bonici’s performance. Muscat’s Labour is definitely a winning outfit.

Note please, that I say Muscat’s Labour. The formula has worked in an election where the entire country is considered a single constituency and a national profile counts for a lot. Case in point is Joseph Cuschieri’s election: an MP who’s always struggled to be elected in his district and always through casual election assumed national visiblity just by giving up his seat. It’s, of course, a different matter in general elections where local matters matter more and the less savoury side of Labour cannot be so easily hidden away.

So Labour is justified in celebrating. The question is will the party drag for the rest of the legislature? That’s between three and four years. To date there was always a set of local council elections to keep the morale high and to get Jason Micallef to say, in 2006, that with an EP victory under its belt and two rounds of local elections the Party was cruising to a general election victory. If the proposed reform of local councils goes through we won’t see another round of local elections before 2012 and little to give Labour an adrelanin rush except for, perhaps, a maratona gbir ta’ fondi.

Which could give some breating space for the Nationalist government to recover. Note again, that I do not refer to the Party. It’s likely that the cleanup the Party needs can only come after a general election – whether the Party wins that or not – a matter on which Nationalist voters can usually be counted on. And I hope it will not mean that the Party will become less ambitious. Times columnist Mark-Anthony Falzon has already expressed his concern that the poor result for the Nationalists might lead to relaxation of, say, planning regulations. The Nationalist might lose the battle if they set the bar high (and joining the eurozone showed that that is not necessarily so) but they can still win the proverbial war.

Which again brings me to Labour. Undeniably, Muscat’s “coalition” is highly opportunistic. I need not make a list of gripes but it is obvious that quite a few are irreconcilable: with the new European reality, with the rule of law and even with and of themselves. I’m thinking of things like immigration here where Labour’s “twenty points” would lead not only to a mighty diplomatic war with Italy but enstrangement, if not suspension, from the EU. I’m thinking of the Party’s calls to reduce taxation and increase welfare benefits, compounded of late with the complaint that the government has reduced its budget for capital expenditure.

For Muscat, as I said earlier, is “almost all” Sant wasn’t. One thing the two leaders share is that their concerns never went beyond winning the next general election. Cobbling together a “coalition” (anyone remember Sant’s “maggoranza gdida“?) in opposition is one thing. Holding it together is a totally different matter.

Days of Reflection

This blog is going “ballistic” according to Jacques (he who in the last couple of days has covered this blog almost as much as he has covered the election). But if this blog is going anywhere it’s offline. Thanks to disruption of the internet service, the traditional day of reflection at Thermidor will be extended to two.

Meanwhile, keep on following J’Accuse. Who knows? The blog owner might take some time off waffling and suggesting to readers how to vote and explain how (and why) he managed to mangle a four word campaign slogan. Some people, like Vince Farrugia and David Casa, should be rebuked for resorting to a easy copy-and-paste exercises when they shouldn’t; others for being incapable of something so easy … when they should.

Surveys independent and not

MaltaToday leads with the story that Stefano Mallia, who’s involved in Simon Busuttil’s campaign, was the man behind the last Sunday Times survey giving Labour a 10-point lead on the Nationalists.

The Sunday Times clearly indicated that the survey was carried out by EMCS Ltd and for years Mallia had written articles in the Indy signing off as one of the directors of the company. But somehow MaltaToday still considered this as a scoop and worthy of its front page.

And what’s the big deal? Were the survey results were tinkered with like Sarkozy’s slogan on J’Accuse? And, in any case, to what end? MaltaToday hints how:

Central to the PN strategy is propping up the Labour vote, in a bid to encourage Nationalist voters to come out to vote and minimise PN losses.

So forget the Sunday Times survey, a paper which presumably is so subject to Nationalist manipulation that in the same edition it reported on an email by the same Mallia asking Nationalist candidates not to disclose to journalists the campaign expenses so far. Find yourself an independent survey. Like the one carried out by MaltaToday which gave Labour … wait for it … a lead of a 9 percentage points.

MaltaToday, however, is undeterred:

But subtle differences between the two surveys are worthy of note: the MaltaToday survey gives AD 4.1% of the vote, while the EMCS gives it just 0.25%.

So that’s what it boils down to: the EMCS is stringier with the Greens. But how’s that part of “Nationalist stategy” other than perhaps irritating Cassola who has refused to believe a survey giving “Others” just over 3.5% of the vote? How does minimalising the Green vote, which is just about the only thing MaltaToday can charge EMCS with, encourage Nationalist voters to come out and vote?

There are different, simpler and more straightforward explanations. One is that the Sunday Times is MaltaToday’s competition. The other explanation is a consequence of the first: conspiracy stories sell.