Democratic Alternative (), sometimes referred to as AD – The Green Party, was a

green Green is the color between cyan and yellow on the visible spectrum. It is evoked by light which has a dominant wavelength of roughly 495570 nm. In subtractive color systems, used in painting and color printing, it is created by a com ...

political party A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular area's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific political ideology, ...

Malta Malta, officially the Republic of Malta, is an island country in Southern Europe located in the Mediterranean Sea, between Sicily and North Africa. It consists of an archipelago south of Italy, east of Tunisia, and north of Libya. The two ...

. The party was initially founded by a coalition of former Labour Party members and environmental activists in 1989. On 1 August 2020 the party announced a plan to merge with the Democratic Party to form a new party called AD+PD. The merger was conducted on 17 October 2020.

History

Alternattiva Demokratika was founded in 1989 when former

Malta Labour Party The Labour Party (, PL), formerly known as the Malta Labour Party (, MLP), is the oldest List of political parties in Malta, political party in Malta, and one of the two major parties alongside the Nationalist Party (Malta), Nationalist Party. ...

President Toni Abela and former Labour MP and Parliamentary whip Wenzu Mintoff joined a number of

environmental activist The environmental movement (sometimes referred to as the ecology movement) is a social movement that aims to protect the natural world from harmful environmental practices in order to create sustainable living. In its recognition of humanity a ...

s to form the new political party. Abela and Mintoff had resigned their posts in protest at the presence of certain elements in the Labour Party tainted with

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and

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. For this Abela and Mintoff were expelled from the Labour Party. Mintoff retained his seat in Parliament and, between 1989 and 1992 was effectively an MP for the new party as well as its first Chairperson. Alternattiva Demokratika first stood for the 1992 national elections when it obtained 1.69% of first preference votes (their best result in a general election until 2013) and no seats. In the subsequent elections of

1996 1996 was designated as: * International Year for the Eradication of Poverty Events January * January 8 – A Zairean cargo plane crashes into a crowded market in the center of the capital city of the Democratic Republic of the Congo ...

and

1998 1998 was designated as the ''International Year of the Ocean''. Events January * January 6 – The ''Lunar Prospector'' spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon, and later finds evidence for Lunar water, frozen water, in soil i ...

the Party's share of the vote declined. Following the 1998 result, Abela and Mintoff resigned and returned to the Labour Party (Abela was to be elected Labour's Deputy Leader in 2008). Harry Vassallo replaced Mintoff as Chairperson of the Party in 1999. In 2003 the party campaigned for a ''Yes'' vote in the referendum on membership in the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are Geography of the European Union, located primarily in Europe. The u ...

. In the election that year the Party obtained only 0.7% of first preference votes having campaigned for second preference votes in order to secure the earlier referendum result and Malta's entry into the European Union. In 2004 the party obtained a remarkable result in the

European Parliament election Elections to the European Parliament take place every five years by universal adult suffrage; with more than 400 million people eligible to vote, they are the second largest democratic elections in the world after India's. Until 2019, 751 ...

with 9.33% of first preference votes cast and the party's candidate,

Arnold Cassola Arnold Cassola (born November 21, 1953) is a Maltese and Italian independent politician, professor, author and editor of various books and academic papers. Cassola is a professor in Comparative Literature at the University of Malta. He has held ...

narrowly failing to be elected as MEP. In the Maltese general election of 2008, the party increased its share of the vote to 1.31%. After ten years at the helm, Vassallo resigned as Chairperson and was replaced by Cassola. Barely a year later Cassola handed his resignation following the Party's poor showing at the

European Parliament Election Elections to the European Parliament take place every five years by universal adult suffrage; with more than 400 million people eligible to vote, they are the second largest democratic elections in the world after India's. Until 2019, 751 ...

in June 2009. Cassola was replaced by Michael Briguglio in October 2009 but returned to the helm following Briguglio's resignation in 2013. Carmel Cacopardo was elected to lead in 2017. In the general election of 2013, Alternattiva Demokratika obtained its best ever result with 5,506 votes (1.8%) in total across all districts where they ran candidates but failed to win a seat in parliament. The party's best result was in District 10 where then party leader Michael Briguglio received 741 first preference votes and a further 154 transfers before being eliminated after the 17th count. The quota for that district was 3,679 votes. After the election some Democratic Alternative supporters claimed this raised a number of issues regarding representation. Talks are expected to take place during a constitutional convention with regards to addressing anomalies with the current Maltese electoral system. Alternattiva Demokratika entered into preliminary coalition negotiations with the Nationalist Party in April 2017 to determine if they could cooperate to unseat the Labour government. The talks broke down when AD's proposal of a coalition running under a separate name, 'Qawsalla' ("Rainbow"), with a new policy platform was rejected by the Nationalists, who were willing to form the coalition only if AD candidates ran under the Nationalist ticket.

Media

In the 1990s, Alternattiva Demokratika had its own newspaper publication, ''Alternattiva'', whose editor in chief from 1989 until 1991 was Harry Vassallo, and its own radio station,

Capital Radio Capital London is an Independent Local Radio station owned and operated by Global Media & Entertainment as part of its national Capital (radio network), Capital Network. As Capital Radio it was launched in the London area in 1973 as one of Bri ...

Leaders

* Wenzu Mintoff 1989–1999 * Harry Vassallo 1999–2008 *

2008–2009 * Michael Briguglio 2009–2013 *

2013–2017 * Carmel Cacopardo 2017–2020

Electoral history

House of Representatives elections

European parliamentary elections

References

External links

* {{Authority control Defunct political parties in Malta Green parties in Europe European Green Party Political parties established in 1989 1989 establishments in Malta 2020 disestablishments in Malta Political parties disestablished in 2020 Defunct green political parties