Malta
European Parliament Elections
Electoral system
Malta elects five members to the European Parliament. The electoral system is based on single transferable vote. Malta comprises one, national electoral district for these elections. The STV-Droop electoral formula. Ballots are, by virtue of the STV electoral system, open and preferential. Thus, voters rank-order the candidates participating in the election and can choose freely among candidates belonging to different parties.
Latest elections
The European Parliament elections of 2009 in Malta, were held on 6 June. A total of 10 parties ran lists in the elections: Malta Labour Party (MLP), Nationalist Party (PN), Alternattiva Demokratika (AD), Imperium Europa (IE), National Alliance (AN), in addition to five minor parties, all winning less than 0,5 percent of the votes (Alpha Liberal Democratic Party (ALDP), Kul Ewropa (Kul), Libertas Malta, Partit Tal-Ajkla (TA) and Alleanza Liberali (AL)). Three aspects of the results stand out: First, the Nationalists failed – as they did in the previous EP elections – to achieve a majority of the first-counts votes even though they had failed in that respect in only one of the six previous general elections. Second, the votes for the two AD candidates totaled only 2.34 percent compared to the 9.33 percent the party had reached in 2004. The fate of Malta’s third political party now seems to be extinction, as its positions on environmental and social issues have been partially absorbed by the major parties. Third, although illegal immigration and the accompanying xenophobia were quite prominent in public opinion, the two parties (Imperium Europa and National Alliance) which made these the focus of their campaigns were quite unsuccessful electorally. Of the five seats available, MLP won three, while PN won 2.
Election resluts, 2009
Sources
Stöver, Philip, and Andreas Wüst. 2005. Electoral Systems.
European Parliament: results by country
