Elections in Malta

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to navigation Jump to search

Template:Short description Template:Sidebar with collapsible lists Malta elects on a national level 6 MEPs representing Malta in the European Parliament, on a district level the legislature, on a local level the local councils, and on a community level the Administrative Committees.

Malta uses single transferable vote to elect its MP/MEP and local councillors. Even though transferable preferences often are used to help third parties, the Maltese voter, since independence, has consistently placed its first-choice vote and its back-up preferences for candidates of one of two dominant political parties, and the country has effectively created a two party system. A third party Representative was elected to Parliament for the first time since Independence in 2017, thanks to the election of the Democratic Party to Parliament as part of the Forza Nazzjonali coalition.[1]

Legislature

The House of Representatives (Template:Langx) has 65 members, elected for a five-year term in 13 five-seat electoral divisions, called distretti elettorali, with constitutional amendments that allows for mechanisms to establish strict proportionality amongst seats and votes of political parliamentary groups.

Latest Legislative elections

Script error: No such module "Labelled list hatnote".

Timeline of formed governments since 1921

<timeline> ImageSize = width:900 height:auto barincrement:20 PlotArea = left:120 bottom:100 top:10 right:20 Alignbars = justify DateFormat = dd/mm/yyyy Period = from:01/01/1920 till:16/12/2025 TimeAxis = orientation:horizontal format:yyyy Legend = orientation:vertical position:bottom columns:2 ScaleMajor = increment:5 start:1920 ScaleMinor = increment:1 start:1920

Colors = 

id:Election value:black    legend:General_Election
id:UPM value:purple         legend:Unione_Politica_Maltese
id:CP value:orange          legend:Partito_Costituzionale
id:PL value:red                 legend:Malta_Labour_Party/Partit_Laburista
id:PN value:blue              legend:Partit_Nazzjonalista
id:MWP value:claret    legend:Malta_Workers_Party

BarData = 

bar:UPM text:"Maltese Political Union"
bar:CP text:"Constitutional Party"
bar:PL text:"Labour Party"
bar:PN text:"Nationalist Party"
bar:MWP text:"Malta Workers Party"

PlotData= 

width:11
bar:UPM from:20/10/1921 till:08/06/1924 color:UPM
bar:CP from:11/06/1924 till:06/08/1927 color:CP
bar:CP from:09/08/1927 till:10/06/1932 color:CP
bar:PL from:09/08/1927 till:10/06/1932 color:PL
bar:PN from:14/06/1932 till:21/07/1939 color:PN
bar:CP from:25/07/1939 till:09/12/1945 color:CP
bar:PL from:13/09/1945 till:24/10/1947 color:PL
bar:PL from:28/10/1947 till:01/09/1950 color:PL
bar:PN from:05/09/1950 till:04/05/1951 color:PN
bar:MWP from:05/09/1950 till:04/05/1951 color:MWP
bar:PN from:08/05/1951 till:11/12/1953 color:PN
bar:MWP from:08/05/1951 till:11/12/1953 color:MWP
bar:PL from:15/12/1953 till:25/02/1955 color:PL
bar:PL from:01/03/1955 till:16/02/1962 color:PL
bar:PN from:20/02/1962 till:25/03/1966 color:PN
bar:PN from:29/03/1966 till:11/06/1971 color:PN
bar:PL from:15/06/1971 till:16/09/1976 color:PL
bar:PL from:19/09/1976 till:11/12/1981 color:PL
bar:PL from:13/12/1981 till:08/05/1987 color:PL
bar:PN from:10/05/1987 till:21/02/1992 color:PN
bar:PN from:23/02/1992 till:25/10/1996 color:PN
bar:PL from:27/10/1996 till:04/09/1998 color:PL
bar:PN from:06/09/1998 till:11/04/2003 color:PN
bar:PN from:13/04/2003 till:07/03/2008 color:PN
bar:PN from:09/03/2008 till:08/03/2013 color:PN
bar:PL from:10/03/2013 till:end color:PL

LineData = 

layer:back color:Election
at:09/06/1924
at:07/08/1927
at:11/06/1932
at:22/07/1939
at:10/12/1945
at:25/10/1947
at:02/09/1950
at:05/05/1951
at:12/12/1953
at:26/02/1955
at:17/02/1962
at:26/03/1966
at:12/06/1971
at:17/09/1976
at:12/12/1981
at:10/05/1987
at:22/02/1992
at:26/10/1996
at:05/09/1998
at:12/04/2003
at:08/03/2008
at:09/03/2013
at:03/06/2017
at:26/03/2022

</timeline>

European elections

Script error: No such module "Labelled list hatnote". Script error: No such module "Labelled list hatnote". Script error: No such module "Labelled list hatnote". Script error: No such module "Labelled list hatnote".

Malta, the smallest EU member state, includes around 0.1% of the total EU population. Maltese voters elect 6 MEPs (5 until 2011) to the European Parliament, or one every 69,342 voters - the lowest population-per-seat ratio in the EU,[2] 10 times smaller than the EU average (680,000) and 20 times smaller than the largest European Parliament constituency.[3][4]Template:Rp Malta is thus the extreme case in the curve of the degressive proportionality function that allocates European Parliament seats to EU Member States constituencies.

European elections in Malta are held according to the single transferable vote (STV) system, consistently with domestic electoral systems and with EU standards requiring proportional representation and use either the list system or STV.[4]Template:Rp[5]

Local elections

Script error: No such module "Unsubst".

In the 2015 local elections, 16-year-olds were allowed to vote for the first time. On March 5, 2018, 16-year-olds were given the right to vote in general elections. [6]

Referendums

There are three types of referendums in Malta: constitutional, consultative and abrogative referendums.

The Constitution of Malta mentions the institute of referendum only in Article 66, sub-articles 3 and 4 (and even then implicitly).[7] Those sub-articles requires that a bill be "[...] submitted to the electors [...] and the majority of the electors voting have approved the bill" in case it modifies:

  • sub-article defining the length of parliamentary term to be five years (article 76, sub-article 2), or
  • sub-articles defining this procedure (article 66, sub-articles 3 and 4)

Such referendum is binding. This type of referendum has never taken place.

The other categories of referendums are regulated by the Referenda Act. "Consultative" referendums (the Act does not use the term) can either take place prior to the assent of a bill in the House of Representatives or following the parliamentary procedure in a form of a conditional clause in the said bill. In the former case it would not legally bind Parliament to approve the said legislation irrelevant of the result of the said referendum, however the latter case, it would be conventionally binding on the President to promulgate the bill into law. There has been six referendums like this on a national level, one on a regional level (1973 Gozo Civic Council referendum) and a number of local referendums organised by single Local Councils.

An abrogative referendum has never been held and, if invoked and successful, can abrogate pieces of legislation barring some exceptions, notably financial and constitutional law.

There was a total of 6 national referendums in Malta. Of those, 3 referendums were held while Malta was a British crown colony. Those were referendums on:

Three referendums were held in independent Malta:

There was also one local referendum in 1973 in region of Gozo. All seven were non-binding on the colonial and independent government. However, all resulted in a vote in favour of the proposal and, with the exception of the 1956 integration referendum, they were all honoured by the responsible government of the day.

See also

References

Template:Reflist

External links

Template:Maltese elections Template:Elections in Europe Template:Malta topics

  1. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  2. ↑ followed by the German-speaking community of Belgium (75,000) and by Luxembourg (83,000)
  3. ↑ Lubusz and West Pomeranian, Poland, 1,350,000 voters-per-seat
  4. ↑ a b Davide Denti, The Electoral Law for the European Parliament in Malta. Effects for Europe of a Single Transferable Vote System in a Polarised Society, in Elżbieta Kużelewska and Dariusz Kloza (eds.), ELECTIONS TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AS A CHALLENGE FOR DEMOCRACY, Warszawa–Białystok, Aspra, 2013, pp. 263-278
  5. ↑ Article 223 TFEU and Council Decision 2002/772/EC, Euratom
  6. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  7. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
Retrieved from "http://debianws.lexgopc.com/wiki143/index.php?title=Elections_in_Malta&oldid=1108958"