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The Malta Labour Party has been in transit for so long that it should be sponsored by Ford. From its violence-stricken Eighties past, to its meteoric 1996 election success to its ignominious downfall and EU detours, it has been one long journey. But in the words of Eighties group Madness, it’s pretty much been a road to nowhere, that is, unless you consider victory by default to be a good place to get to.
At this point, the MLP is arguably the largest party in Malta (nobody seems to be doing the math and finding the black hole which has sucked up many thousands of their supporters who now swell the ranks of non-voters). Applying the basic law of gravity that what goes up must come down, it seems to be a foregone conclusion that the Nationalist party will be ousted from office next time round with Labour being a definite shoe-in. Common wisdom has it that the 2008 election is Alfred Sant’s to lose. Barring any further gaffes on the ‘Partnership rebah’ mode and a total transformation of the gangrened Nationalist Party, victory is his. Labour spin doctors and PR gurus can relax. Alfred Sant can retreat to a hermit’s cove, work on a sequel to La Biedu u Lanqas Tmiem and lease out the Hamrun glass palace to English language students, he will still come out a winner. There’s always the hoary “a week is a long time in politics” saying, but twenty years of almost continuous Nationalist rule is a hell of a lot longer.
In view of this, it is a puzzling yet telling sign that the guns of the PN media machine and assorted satellites are not turned directly on the Labour Party but are constantly bombarding AD. This is done in a number of ways, but there is one major underlying message which the Nationalist party wants to hammer home – As a dutiful citizen, you will continue to vote for the PN in perpetuity, because the alternative is far, far worse. So we get people like the Chairperson of the Housing Authority Marisa Micallef Leyson. Not a week goes by without the insertion of an anti-AD jibe, however tenuous the link to the subject matter of her article. Realising that hysteria is not a good platform, she then finishes off by asking readers to reflect upon the consequences of voting for AD. The Alfred Sant bogeyman is inevitably pulled into the picture.
Other commentators have pulled out the stops – being an AD activist (Always “activist”, never supporter or sympathizer – I suppose it’s the appeal of the alliteration) has been variously attributable to a desire to buck the trend, to be “hip,” to jump on the bandwagon, to exorcise feelings of envy because we’re not lolling around in the lap of luxury like government Ministers and - my personal favourite – to pay back the party we’re hitched to in unholy matrimony, by sleeping with the enemy. NET TV does its bit by maintaining a lofty silence, preferring not to acknowledge the existence of AD as a third force. This unofficial boycott was kept up by Joe Grima, whose reincarnation as a Nationalist nose-wiper and apologist, made him twist himself into a pretzel on a recent edition of ‘Opinjonisti’ about consensual politics. “Consensual politics” in Grimaspeak translates into a process where one of the two Maltese political behemoths gets to rule the roost and the other party doesn’t kick up too much of a fuss. No mention of that section of the electorate which voted for AD and their say on any issue.
The constant Nationalist harping against AD is a misguided attempt to lead what are perceived to be “lost sheep” back to the fold. It is based on the premise that AD voters are really disgruntled Nationalist voters. Its exponents figure that a call to reason and the threat of a government lead by Alfred Sant should be enough to herd voters back. They are caught in a situation where they cannot overtly criticise the PN government as this would portray it as unappealingly as it actually is, and therefore deter even more potential would-be PN voters. AD-bashers who are not of the myopic type realise only too well that the Nationalist party is worn-out and not delivering and one which places more emphasis on ‘spin’ than ‘spine.’ Yet, they continue to summon forth the nightmare scenario of a Labour government. They do not realise that the nightmare the country is living through is unfolding right now and will continue to do so, until the two party system remains in place. By being bad the MLP allows the PN to be equally disgraceful, the latter safe in the knowledge that it’s official and unofficial scaremongerers will accept any wrongdoings on its part as long as it’s not the other party. A vote for either of the two major political parties is a vote for more of the same. It is giving them a mandate for mediocrity by which no-one benefits.
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