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.