European Elections: Quick note on the non-mainstream vote, whose winner was Cassola, defeating the conspiratorial right
European Elections: Quick note on the non-mainstream vote, whose winner was Cassola, defeating the conspiratorial right
Arnold Cassola, a man so comfortable in his own skin, sent a clear message against the far-right, and he slowed down their expected gains
Some cursory number-crunching on the non-mainstream (PL-PN) vote clearly shows how in European elections, within the independent field it is bold candidates, radical voices, and clear-cut opponents of ‘mainstream complacence’, who make the best gains.
Unlike the 2019 elections, in which a visible protest vote was registered with far-rightist Norman Lowell’s anti-immigration agenda (over 8,000 votes and higher than in 2014), this time around Malta found a non-partisan voice in green politician Arnold Cassola, who polled the highest ever independent vote with 12,800, ballooning to just 23,000 odd with latter preference votes.
That does not mean that the conservative voice was not present in these MEP elections for Malta.
Although his identification with the European conservative right came late in the day, former Labour mayor Conrad Borg Manché managed to garner a very respectable 5,936 votes on his own steam, probably hiving off a suitable chunk of Labour votes all to himself. By the time he was eliminated, at least half of his 7,600 final count votes had been passed on to Cassola.
But the far-right, in which Holocaust denier and racialist firebrand Norman Lowell was visibly absent throughout any public debate, carved out 6,669 votes (his unknown sidekick Terrence Portelli garnered an inconsequential 147). With few vote transfers trickling to Lowell from other candidates, the final count was 8,577… but the protest vote was clear, and even 1,365 of his votes were transferred to Cassola.
Still, Lowell’s growing trend in EU elections was slowed down considerably from 2019’s final vote count of 8,335; but it is a sign that while in Malta the far-right is the ideal ‘mainstream-party-punching-bag’, countering its voice required a very active and bold campaign of voiced outrage the likes of Arnold Cassola’s.
The conspiratorial right-wing menagerie
The rest of the conservative, conspiratorial right-wing menagerie could revel in the breadcrumbs of the European vote: mere hundreds.
- Noel Apap, a self-styled Mintoffian patriot who rails against immigrants on Facebook, managed just 154 final votes.
- Alexander d’Agata, formerly an Abba candidate, got 98 votes; Stephen Florian, another voice from the cantankerous right wing, 69; the former Abba candidate George Radu, 56.
- Ivan Grech Mintoff, him of limp-wristed egg-throwing fame, having founded Abba as a Christian right-wing party and then disowned by the same party in the final weeks of the campaign, got less votes - a final count of 232 - than his unknown sidekick Tania Gauci Fiorini, 468.
- Ringmaster and history professor Simon Mercieca, whose website hosts cultural right-wingers peddling anti-vax/anti-woke treatises, garnered an insignificant 281 votes.
- Even Facebook personality Adrian ‘Bebbuxu’ Zammit polled more votes than these ‘radicals’ with a 722 final count.
- That left just former Nationalist MP Edwin Vassallo, another nostalgic conservative who enjoys getting comfy with Mercieca, with 902 votes.
READ MORE Anti-gay, anti-feminist, religious zealots: the adversaries of the Equality Act
Ryder and the Greens
1. The surprise performance was that of young comedian James Ryder - no conservative there - who was, bar Cassola and Borg Manché, last man standing this crowded field of independents, with a significant 1,585 first-count votes, growing to 2,244. Unsurprisingly, a quarter of those votes transferred to Cassola.
2. On the other side of the spectrum, Green Party ADPD failed to make significant gains that might have stolen the show from other formations. While Sandra Gauci weakly surmised that voters “are not choosing parties” due to their association with mainstream philandering, that excuse does not explain why far-right Imperium gets double the Greens’ vote. Nor does the mealy-mouthed suggestion that voters base their choices on “sympathies and emotion”: indeed they do, just that none of thie emotional bank seems to be registered with the Greens. Gauci polled 3,603 final votes, with none of the other three candidates managing anything past 800 (Cassar 715, Tolu 215, Deguara 369).
Pipped yet again, ADPD should be thinking, by the confident voices and better political campaigns of their peers and rivals.
