Shrinking Malta’s Parliament won’t fix its political culture
Matthew Vella
Brand journalist ● Media freelancer and fixer for TV, film, location scouting ● 23 years in journalism ● Author of bestselling 'Passport To Vice'
Reducing the number of MPs in Malta is a solution in search of a problem. Real democratic improvement requires institutional strengthening, regulatory vigilance, and a commitment to pluralism
Of the 8-page note from the Chamber of Commerce proposing a smaller Maltese parliament, a mere 255 words call for a reduction in MPs from the minimum 65 from 13 districts, to 45 from five districts.
Why? No reason is given. No causal link to suggest that this might improve democratic life. No evidence given that the size of Malta’s current parliament (79 MPs -since 2022, 12 extra seats were provided to female candidates, as long as they fail to make up 40% of the elected members) might have worsened democratic culture or worsened governance standards.
Of all the document’s proposals, this seems to have gained the most traction on social media (the rest of the document has extremely valid points: full-time MPs, a national minimum threshold that gives representation to small parties, formalised appointment system for technocrats).
Numbers have got nothing to do with it
Malta’s democratic health depends not on how few legislators it has, but on how effectively they are held accountable. The real battle is not against numbers, but against a political culture that thrives on unchecked influence. Shrinking Parliament is an empty gesture unless accompanied by the structural reforms that Malta’s democracy truly needs.
I’ve heard this old chestnut before being bandied about by many an armchair critic – that reducing MPs is the key to… something that might work better than what we have now.
But it’s an observation that is fuelled by the perception of a political class whose critics find it inept or simply unlikeable, and which views the democratic process as a contemptible parade of fools elected by the self-serving choices of ignorant voters.
Allow me a quick digression: we either believe democratic choices are equal or we don’t; we either believe one has the right to run for democratic office or we don’t; and whether one votes ‘for the common good’ (as they see it) or for other selfish reasons, turning the democratic vote into some confessional act, is a shibboleth. It is the mealy-mouthed complaint of elitists who write off Maltese society as ‘amorally familial’ on politics, but then ignore the rational self-interest they would otherwise employ in other arenas of life (and it is also an incorrect usage of the anthropological term whose right-wing American author and Republican advisor coined it for a particular Italian peasant society he had been carrying out fieldwork in).
The myth of ‘fewer MPs, better governance’
Of course, in an era of political cynicism, sweeping reforms can appear as attractive solutions to systemic problems.
But it’s wrong to misrepresent the size of our House as a means to enhance governance, or curb clientelism. Beyond its weirdly populist, ‘drain-the-swamp’ appeal, the assumption that a smaller Parliament will translate into better governance is deeply flawed.
Firstly, its supporters overlook the intricate dynamics of Maltese political culture and the anthropological realities of a tightly-knit society. Malta is, for better or worse, a highly politically-engaged society, and no boardroom maths is going to change this culture overnight.
If it is efficiency in lawmaking that we are after, a better financed and organised Parliament can achieve more streamlined decision-making. But there is no empirical evidence to suggest a causal relationship between quality of governance in Malta and its 79 MPs – because governance is determined by robust institutions, clear regulatory frameworks, and strong democratic norms, not the numerical strength of a legislative body.
The fundamental problem is that political power in Malta is historically monopolised by two dominant parties with extensive media control – not just through party structures but also from the party loyalties of those in the press; and a hegemony that takes up physical space in towns, as well as through a broad network of skilled individuals campaigning for it, activists, loyalists, pundits, and business donors who see a pay-off from their activism and tacit support. These societal interactions produce real benefits. Ministers of state become the source of professional opportunities and the economic trajectories that will redistribute state resources.
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So how will shrinking Parliament dismantle this machinery?
In a society where political parties (for now) still serve as social ecosystems, reducing representation might not necessarily weaken patronage – it would merely concentrate it in fewer hands. Larger constituencies might guarantee a greater reliance on centralised party structures to manage voter engagement (at the expense of ‘village appeal’ of the country bumpkins derided by party elites and boardroom bros). Will it not be citizens who will suffer from this dilution of representation? I believe that many social groups would go unnoticed and ignored by a smaller parliament of MPs whose election can be centrally managed by the party (probably opting for a more ‘professional’ class of MP than local, village reps).
Technocratic co-option: another solution in search of a problem?
The other ‘problem’ created by the Chamber document is a system that allows a prime minister a limited number of technocratic ministerial appointments. Not entirely objectionable, for it devises a neat solution against party manipulation of co-option scenarios, which are in themselves rare instances.
A party can co-opt an unelected MP to the House if a seat is left vacant and there is no casual election for that seat - in the last legislature we have seen retirements (Joseph Muscat, Etienne Grech) or resignations from scandal (Silvio Grixti), and these were more frequent than any other legislature since 2022. When an MP retires, a casual election is triggered between the remaining candidates who went unelected in the same district. It is only when no casual election can be held (no more candidates available to contest an election) that a co-option is possible. What the Chamber does not like is that a party can engineer many ways in which candidates choose not to contest the casual election (so the election does not take place) or as happened with the election of former PN leader Adrian Delia, have the successful candidate immediately resign the seat they win in a casual election.
The Chamber’s ‘solution’ is that the prime minister gets a limited number of technical appointments, which must perforce replace the least voted MP in the party - a move that trumps the first democratic choice of the people anyway. Another ‘mathematical’ solution. But what would it change? Arguably, decent technocrats like Clyde Caruana and Miriam Dalli would be kept out because lopping off ‘the least voted MP’ (whose vote count has got nothing to do with popularity or performance) is a politically unpopular move. Why should the (relatively) least voted MP lose their seat after campaigning hard to be elected?
Another solution: regulation, not reduction
We know Maltese society functions through close-knit relationships, extended family ties, and community-driven networks. So does Malta’s business and employers lobby benefit from the proximity it enjoys to the source of political power. It’s not every voter who can actually call up a Prime Minister on the cellphone. And let’s not suddenly ignore that old-boys network and unspoken codes of our social habitus, and their influence on job mobility within certain enterprises.
If anything Malta’s politicians, embedded in their constituencies, are valued for their personal familiarity and accessibility because these often matter more than abstract policy positions. Can we confidently say that larger, impersonal democracies are today well-equipped to cut through the malaise of their societies?
The core problem in Malta’s political landscape is the unchecked power of its two dominant parties and the weak enforcement of regulatory measures designed to curb corruption and clientelism.
Real reform would involve:
None of these measures require reducing the number of MPs.
Instead, they require political will – the one commodity that no structural reform can manufacture overnight.
Reducing the number of MPs in Malta is a solution in search of a problem. Real democratic improvement requires institutional strengthening, regulatory vigilance, and a commitment to political plurality – not a superficial numerical adjustment.