In 1981, the Maltese Nationalist Party won more votes than Labour but received fewer seats, leading to a constitutional amendment introducing bonus seats to prevent future such outcomes.
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At 32:40 · chapter starts 30:00
Moving beyond FPTP and STV, Jon and David survey party-list proportional representation. In a closed-list system, voters choose a party and the party's pre-ranked list determines which candidates enter parliament — voters have zero influence over individual outcomes. Open lists allow voter re-ranking. Jon then confronts the common Maltese excuse for the two-party system: 'we're too small for more parties.' Liechtenstein, with 40,000–50,000 people, has five. Ireland, similar in size and also using STV, has multiple significant parties. The hosts argue that Malta's political monoculture is a cultural and structural choice, not a geographic inevitability — and that the STV system actually has the capacity to support plurality if voters and parties chose to use it.
In 1981, the Maltese Nationalist Party won more votes than Labour but won fewer seats and lost the election. The constitutional response was a bonus-seat mechanism to ensure the majority-vote party always forms government. The cure, however, introduced its own form of disproportionality that still distorts results today.
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