Politika Onesta jew Diżonesta? Volt Malta asks the country’s candidates to sign the pledge for honest politics.
Politika Onesta jew Diżonesta? Volt Malta asks the country’s candidates to sign the pledge for honest politics.
- Candidates being asked to sign a pledge to ensure they don’t hand out favours for votes
- Not signing or breaking the pledge adds them to a specific list
- Friday will reveal the candidates’ responses.
The political party Volt Malta is creating a pledge as part of its #PolitikaOnesta project, codenamed #PolitikaOnesta 2.0 to fight clientelism during and after elections. The pledge expects candidates to sign up for these 3 goals, which must also be adhered to after the election. (Webpage www.voltmalta.org/politika-onesta-pledge)
1) I pledge to not give favours in exchange for votes.
2) I pledge to not give favours indirectly through any government institutions in exchange for votes.
3) I pledge to not give favours indirectly through any friends/partners in the private sector in exchange for votes.
The web page for this project has already been set up and will start being populated with candidates on Friday. Volt Malta’s 2 Candidates Alexia DeBono, Thomas ‘‘Kass’’ Mallia, running in districts 8,9 and 10,11 respectively have already agreed to sign the pledge. The party defines favours as ;
‘’Goods, services and/or occupations promised personally to individuals which would be redeemed after and/or during the election.’’
There have been numerous reports of clientelism in Malta which the law fails to adequately address. Activities called ‘treating’ are only regulated during elections however beyond that there is not much that can be done. The party aims to raise the standard of politics by encouraging people to promise to follow the pledge but also ‘name & shame’ those unwilling to participate or break the pledge from this election until the end of the next Legislature. The party also commits to launching this pledge in every future election.
On whether candidates who would have hypothetically broken the pledge in the past are eligible to sign, the party explains that this project is for this election and upcoming legislature, adding that the pledge didn’t exist before.
This isn’t the first social impact project of Volt Malta, having launched #INeedMAP in late 2020 (to further access to the Morning After Pill) and #PolitikaOnesta 1.0 in late 2021 (to demonstrate how much political figures and entities are spending on Facebook Ads).