The decision taken by the Nationalist Party to withdraw four
candidates from the forthcoming local council elections is rather
strange. It was bound to backfire, and indeed it has done so already.
PN candidates Joseph Brownrigg and Lawrence Grixti in Zejtun, and
Emmanuel Saliba and Matthew Frendo in Marsa, pulled out of the election
minutes before the deadline for applications expired, after having
previously submitted their candidature.
This means that there are now just enough candidates to fill the seats
in both councils, and no election will be held in these two localities.
Marsa will therefore have a council made up of five Labourites and two
Nationalists, while Labour will have an even bigger majority in Zejtun,
8-1.
First of all, the decision means that the PN has already lost one
councillor from its total. At present, Marsa council is composed of a
5-2 Labour majority – the same as it will be from March 2005 to March
2008. Zejtun council is at present composed of seven Labour councillors
and two Nationalists.
But the last-minute withdrawal goes beyond just losing one councillor,
and the MLP was quick to pounce on the issue, interpreting the move as a
sign of weakness on the part of the government.
The MLP is saying that the PN decided to withdraw its four candidates
because it feared a big loss in these two localities, and that by not
allowing the residents there to vote, the PN will be mitigating the
defeat it will suffer overall on 12 March.
It said the PN had resorted to such a move because it cannot afford to
lose heavily again as it did last June in the European Parliament and
local council elections.
Considering that most of the 13,000 who would have voted in Zejtun and
Marsa would have done so for the MLP, Labour is right to say that the
results obtained by the two parties will be closer, since the elections
in these two localities will not be held.
And so the MLP has turned its guns on the PN, saying that its move was
intended to cut down on its losses at a time when the government is
against the ropes.
For the past few weeks, the MLP has been insisting that the people are
fed up with the government and has held a series of events to expose the
people’s frustrations. The PN decision on Zejtun and Marsa have only
helped to strengthen the MLP’s position.
The MLP has gone further than that, by quoting a statement made by PN
general secretary Joe Saliba last year when the MLP resorted to court
action against people who, it felt, did not have a right to vote.
At that time, the PN said that the MLP was aiming to deny people the
right to vote and should try to win over support with political
arguments, rather than by trying to have people struck off the electoral
register. Mr Saliba had also said that the MLP, at the time, had tried
to reduce people’s participation in elections.
The MLP said that the PN is doing the same now – trying to keep people
away from the polls – and it was doing so for purely partisan reasons.
The PN’s decision to withdraw the four candidates was taken to try to
gain some form of political advantage because it would reduce the number
of first count votes the MLP will obtain next month.
But in the end the decision has backfired and it is the MLP which has
gained from it, because the move has been largely interpreted as a
desperate attempt to contain the PN’s losses.
