Talk:2008 Maltese general election

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Elections and Referendums

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I'm not sure how the media can be calling this election for the Nationalists just yet. By my calculations of the quotas, Labour has gained seats in the 7th and 10th districts, giving them 32, and the final seats in the 1st and 2nd districts are too close to call. If Labour wins one of them they will have 33 seats to the Nationalists' 32. Labour has 2.980 quotas in the 1st and 3.998 quotas in the 2nd, so they must be a fair chance of winning either or both. Does anyone have better information than this? Intelligent Mr Toad (talk) 03:06, 11 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It's quite simple -- whoever gets the most votes wins, no matter what the STV count actually reveals, as the party with the most popular votes is given additional seats (handed to those members who were closest to being elected with the STV counts) until they've got a majority. —Nightstallion 17:04, 11 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

So I've since discovered. What an outrageous system. Why have the whole charade of an STV election if all that really matters is the national vote tally? And the Nats didn't even get a majority, just a narrow plurality. Intelligent Mr Toad (talk) 01:47, 12 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm Maltese. The costitution says the party that wins the election is the party that got the most Number 1 votes. The STV is used to elect candidates in parlament. When one party has the majority of number 1 votes, and than those not elect enough candidates to have a majority the costitution provides more seats to have a majority of one on the other party or parties. This only happens if a party gets over 50%+1 of votes. If this happens when there are more than 2 parties but no party gets the 50%+1, the election is won by the party that gets most seats in parlament. Malteseman1983 (talk) 15:40, 12 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Malteseman, that can't be right. The Nationalists did NOT get a majority of the vote. They got more than Labour, but not a majority. Yet the provision giving more seats to the Nationalists was applied. Intelligent Mr Toad (talk) 06:48, 13 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Toad, what are you saying? The Nationalist Party got more votes than Labour, but under 50%+, hence a relative majority, but a majority nonetheless. Malteseman1983 is wrong when he says that when there are more than 2 parties but no party gets the 50%+1, the election is won by the party that gets most seats. The Maltese system essentially works like this: Party with the most first-count votes = winner = parliamentary majority. The STV system is there to determine which canditates will be elected in parliament, but doesn't in any way affect which party wins the election. Marcus1234 (talk) 16:01, 13 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Marcus, altough I agree with you that the Nationalist Party got the majority of votes, you are not right when saying that who have a majority even under 50%+ governs. That's why Lawrence Gonzi had to wait till Tuesday afternoon. Till the results where officiasl by the government election commission, so to make it formal by the costitution that there will be two parties in parlament and none of the other parties managed to have a seat. At first there was some fear that either Azzjoni Nazzjonali or Alternattiva Demokratika elected a seat, and thus that gave the win to the Labour Party. This is the only time from the independence of Malta (1964) that a party won by a relative majority. As you know MArcus in Malta there was a heavy debate by the two major parties against voting to the small parties.Malteseman1983 (talk) 19:17, 13 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes you're right Malteseman. I missed the part where you'd said "more than 2 parties", but yes, as you said, if a party only gets a relative majority, and there are more than 2 parties with elected candidates, then the party with most seats would govern. Marcus1234 (talk) 08:35, 14 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]