Maltese election law permits a person to be a candidate in two election districts simultaneously. Individuals have availed themselves of that opportunity in every election, except in 1939.

As Figure 1 demonstrates, the percentage of such dual candidacies has increased substantially over the years, as has the percentage of seats won by dual candidates. In the pre-war years only 17% of all candidacies were, on average, dual candidacies; in the most recent elections, more than fifty percent of all candidacies were by individuals who competed in two different districts.

The percentage of seats won by dual candidates has shown a similar rise. But it should be noted that Figure 1 depicts the number of seats won, not the number of seats eventually occupied -- because some, though not many, of the candidates won two seats and these had to vacate one of them immediately after the election. Also, the post-election increase in the size of Parliament from 65 to 69 seats in both 1987, 1996 and 2008is ignored here because the data are focused on the winning of seats that were actually at stake in the election proper.

Those pursuing dual candidacies usually include prominent party leaders whose visibility and popularity extend beyond a particular election district. Yet it is worth noting that, on average, only 6.5% of the dual candidacies fell into that triumphant category of candidates who win election on the first count.

Implicit in the data presented in Figure 1 is the fact that most dual candidacies fail to lead to electoral success. Often they are undertaken by individuals who proved to be successful vote-getters in only one -- or in many cases, neither -- election district. On average about two-thirds of all dual candidacies in the post-war period resulted in defeat at the polls.

The considerable number of futile dual candidacies can be attributed in some part to minor party candidacies. Small parties, lacking not only in general electoral appeal but also in available candidates, often have their (electorally doomed) candidates do double duty. Still, there has also been an increase in the number of major party candidates who unsuccessfully pursue dual candidacies.

Indeed, in the post-war years there has always been a substantial number of dual candidacies that failed to reach even five percent of the first-count votes, as shown in Figure 2. At that low threshold, candidates cannot expect to win through subsequent vote transfers and are likely to forfeit the money deposit required of all candidates.

It is not clear to the present writer why there have been so many dual candidacies, often by candidates whose chances of success in one or both contests were predictably nil. Whether the phenomenon is rooted in the egos of candidates or the designs of party organizations, or some other factor, awaits an answer by a Maltese sociologist or political scientist.