This is the list of all of the electoral abuses that I can think of that have actively been perpetuated by the Labour Party. Just because there is no tampering with votes, it doesn’t mean that these elections were held in a fair context. Fairness means that all political parties have equal opportunities to share and spread their message. A fair election also means that the governing party wouldn’t abuse its power of incumbency to skew the election in its favour, but that’s exactly what Labour has been consistently doing with outright corrupt practices. If Labour gets another big majority, these practices will only increase as impunity becomes more rampant and rule of law continues its downward spiral. It is about time we start discussing getting international electoral observers to referee our elections.
The €100 cheques on the eve of the election
There are very significant and reasonable legal arguments that interpret Robert Abela’s €100 cheques sent out to many people at random on the eve of the general elections as a corrupt practice. It is also still unclear how the government selected the recipients of these cheques. Robert Abela also lied about this practice when he said that the cheques were issued to help people with the rising costs that were caused by Russia’s war against Ukraine when in actual fact, Robert Abela planned these cheques way much in advance and they were deliberately planned to be sent on the eve of the elections.
An election campaign funded by the taxpayer
The Labour Party has funded its election campaign with taxpayer money and it did this by a wide and extensive abuse of public institutions. There are many instances of this corrupt practice. Most notable were the fake film awards which were used to pay-off a Labour Party donor which then went on to organize its logistics during the election campaign. Robert Abela also used the Public Broadcaster to release a scripted interview by the government’s paid PR consultant Saviour Balzan on TVM. The Opposition Leader, Bernard Grech didn’t have this opportunity. Just recently, The Shift has also reported that the Labour Party has made extensive use of public resources to organize its meetings and rallies.
The government was not dissolved and Ministers used their public office for electoral purpose
The law dictates that when the election is announced, ministers and political appointees are to resign from their posts so as not to use their public office for electoral purposes. I think this was one of the first instances when this rule was not only disrespected but broken flagrantly and consistently as ministers kept announcing government projects during the election campaign and politically appointed government executives kept their posts while taking decisions which they were not legally entitled to take.
Vulnerable people being forced to vote Labour by Labour activists
There were reports that vulnerable people were forced to vote under the supervision of Labour activists.
People who were not entitled to vote
There were reports that Labour-leaning prisoners who were not entitled to vote were allowed to vote.
These are not all the abuses that have been perpetuated. These are the abuses that I could think of as of now, and I am sure there are many others. The list of favours, gifts and jobs handed out on the eve of the general is also another abuse that should be investigated thoroughly although this would probably take some time given how the government keeps a lot of information secret.
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