Earlier today, Times of Malta broke the story about a new centre-left political party being formed. Cyrus Engerer has been part of this group and plans for the launch of this party have been underway for some months. It is unclear, however if Cyrus Engerer will be the one who will lead it.
The members of the planned party are also members of the NGO Il-Kollettiv and aspire to turn their NGO into a wider political movement. Cyrus Engerer was a previous Labour Party Member of the European Parliament. He did not contest the last European parliament elections.
My personal view on this matter has not changed in principle and that the launch of a new political party besides the already existing Arnold Cassola group and the Green Party will continue to divide the third-party position, effectively defeating its purposes of successfully electing a seat in parliament. As Arnold Cassola plans to create a new political party of his own, voters will have to choose from three different “progressive” political parties. The best chance that voters have to elect a third-party in parliament is for everyone to get together and work inside one party that is efficiently working towards the aim of winning the elections. Having many different third-parties will only ensure that the Nationalist Party remains the biggest and only opposition party in parliament.
The Labour Party will only lose the elections if there is a united opposition against it, and so far this is not happening. The Labour Party is only loosing owing to its own actions with the Nationalist Party making only very little gains. The third-party voter cohort is increasing significantly, but further political fragmentation will hamper its political ambitions.
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