Arnold Cassola

David Lindsay spoke to dual citizen and Green politician Arnold Cassola who is standing as a candidate for the Italian Parliament in a new constituency set up in 2001 for Italians living abroad. He will be on the list of Romano Prodi’s multi-party Unione centre-left coalition. Contrary to public perception, he says that he is not turning his back on Maltese politics :

Speaking to The Malta Independent, Prof. Cassola, who is to be the Unione’s only Green party candidate for Europe, explains how diversified the coalition is, gathering under one umbrella parties as diverse as the Christian Democrats, the European Socialists, I Verdi, Democratici di Sinistra, the Di Pietro list, and the Republicans. “The Unione,” he explains, “is an extremely varied coalition made up of 10 parties ranging from those who, in Malta, would be allied with the Nationalist Party, such as the Christian Democrats, to those who would be linked with the Malta Labour Party, such as the European Socialists.”..

Given the sheer breadth of the European constituency, comprising some 1.6 million potential voters, Prof. Cassola expects a good part of his campaign to be carried out by email.“Given the special circumstances of the constituency, you can’t really go on a door-to-door campaign. But remember that there are around 1,150 Italians in Malta, which also forms part of the constituency, who will be able to vote. Since this is the first time the overseas constituency is being contested, we don’t have an indication yet as to how many eligible voters will be casting their votes.”...