Looks like The Smiths were right. There is panic on the streets of Lija… Mosta, Hamrun and Birkirkara… and I wonder to myself: could it possibly have anything to do with the sudden prospect of a change in government? More specifically, with the clean sweep of every single government department, agency, authority, commission, council and concomitant conclave that invariably comes with such a change?

Ah, me. Look at them panic, the citizens of the Glorious People’s Nepotistic Republic of Bazuzlustan, as they awake to the possibility of losing all they have amassed over 20 years of assiduous back-scratching. Watch in unparalleled amusement, as one by one they fall over themselves in their desperation to convince you and I how to vote in the coming election… all the while unsuccessfully trying to pass off their own private worries as some kind of genuine concern over the country’s uncertain future.
But before I settle comfortably back in my armchair to enjoy the spectacle with a giant bucket of salted popcorn, allow me to make a small confession.

Even though I can now laugh out loud at the increasingly hysterical rants and raves of party apparatchiks, I have to admit I can also partly understand their terror. Panic, you see, is a contagious disease. And I know because I caught a bout of it myself some five years ago, at the prospect of losing out on EU membership simply because some selfish political bigot evidently wouldn’t take a referendum “Yes” for an answer.

I know it seems a long time ago now, but it may be worth remembering why EU membership was considered such a big deal way back in 2003. Euro-sceptics might resent the idea, but many of us wanted to join the EU precisely because it would limit the ability of political megalomaniacs like “you-know-who” to actually screw the country up if elected.
The reasoning went like this: ruinous decisions of the kind which could have proved so costly in the past – e.g., dismantling VAT, or devaluing the Lira – would no longer even be possible within the new parameters of EU membership.
On another level, accession would also open up avenues to justice hitherto denied to citizens of this country, allowing for recourse to an international court should the government try to deprive you of your human rights.
How very ironic, then, that the same people who had urged us all to vote “Yes” to the EU because it would neutralise the threat of a future Labour government, are now the ones to scream blue murder… precisely at the prospect of a future Labour government.

But back to the fun and games. Over the past weeks and months, I have detected a note of panic creeping into Bazuzlustani rhetoric: mainly coming from “concerned citizens” whose entire livelihoods seem to exclusively rely on the Nationalist Party retaining its present stranglehold on Parliament… forever.
So far, symptoms have included hopeless attempts to cry “Big Bad Wolf” about the Labour leader; various arguments involving his age, bad habits and/or general health conditions; reminders of the “bad old days” of Mintoff and KMB; and the latest tactic, which consists in a litany of grovelling panegyrics about how utterly spiffing Dr Gonzi has turned out to be in his all-round capacity as… wait for it… a “People’s Prime Minister”.
(I believe the German word for this is “VolksKaiser”. Javoll!)

How perfectly hilarious. For isn’t this the same Gonzi who has passed up opportunity after opportunity to prove once and for all that he is, in fact, averse to all things corrupt and nepotistic? Among other things, by turning down a ministerial resignation he should really have accepted; and accepting a ministerial resignation that now looks as if it were engineered in the bowels of the Stamperija itself?

Besides, our VolksKaiser also seems to share the view, popular among certain sections of the Diplomatic Corps, that “chairs are better left vacant than occupied by Laburisti.”
This might explain why we currently have a Public Broadcaster operating without a head of news and/or registered editor; without a chairman of the Editorial Board, or even a vague idea of what constitutes a “news item”, as a cursory glance at the 8 o’ clocks news will reveal.
It might also explain why the recent PBS newsroom vacancies were promptly filled by: 1) a journalist from a station owned by the party in Government, and 2) the former PRO of a Cabinet minister.

And yet, this is also the same “VolksKaiser” who rose to power on the promise of a “new way of doing politics”: a promise made shortly after the April 2003 elections, when PN general secretary Joe Saliba had moaned and groaned about a “network of Laburisti” ensconced within the Civil Service.
It seems astonishing to have to point this out in 2008, but in case the VolksKaiser has forgotten, “Laburisti” actually account for approximately half the country’s “Volks”.
From this perspective it would be more accurate to describe Dr Gonzi as “A Prime Minister For Roughly Half the People” (or a “Halbe-VolksKaiser” if you prefer)... which is a great pity really, because apart from being grossly prejudiced against around 200,000 Maltese citizens, Gonzi hasn’t been half bad on other aspects of governance: for instance, deficit reduction, Smartification, being decent about immigration, and others.

But no matter. It seems that Gonzi himself is also succumbing to the occasional bout of panic, as evidenced by any number of astonishing howlers over the past week.
First he held the detested “Laburisti” responsible for computer illiteracy among Gozitan factory workers aged 45 and upwards… despite the fact that computers in the 1980s were actually just glorified toys with names like ZX Spectrum, Atari and Commodore 64.
But my favourite remains Gonzi’s reaction to the Labour Party General Conference last Wednesday, when the “People’s Prime Minister” accused Dr Charles Mangion of “dragging the country’s name through the muck” in front of foreigners.

Well, I listened to Dr Mangion’s speech that day, and there was indeed a name the Labour Deputy leader dragged through the muck in front of foreigners.
But it wasn’t Malta’s. It was Gonzi’s, or more specifically, his government’s.
And herein lies the rub: for the VolksKaiser has evidently committed a mistake common to many VolksKaisers before him: he has mixed up allegiance to the country with allegiance to himself.
By inference, any criticism of Gonzi’s Government is therefore also criticism of Malta... and again, I wonder to myself: where, oh where have I heard this argument before?

Of course! It was back in 1982: you know, the dark days of Mintoffianism, when failure to fall prostrate at Is-Salvatur Ta’ Malta’s feet was deemed a crime against humanity, punishable by instant transfer to some dingy government department of Wistin Abela’s choice.
Back then, Mintoff had taken great offence at the fact that the seditious Nationalists would rush off squeaking behind his back to foreign dignitaries – even broadcasting illegally from Sicily, as I recall – complaining that his government was undemocratic, that it banned English chocolates and Italian pasta, that it forced us all to drink seawater and brush our teeth with Libyan toxic waste...
(Although at this point, I have to admit Mintoff took his megalomania slightly more seriously than Gonzi. Foreign politicians who attended PN meetings back then were unceremoniously arrested, and then deported under the Foreign Interference Act...)

At this juncture, with the air thickened by Old Labour memories, a vague murmur of doubt makes itself felt. OK, so the “bazuzli” have their own vested interests in trying to keep the same old government in place for the next four millennia at least. But... might they not also have a point in warning us about the possible dangers of electing a Labour government?

The answer is simple: OF COURSE THEY DO! After all they are blue-eyed boys, not blue-eyed blockheads. Their panic is perfectly justified, and even if this doesn’t make it any less hilarious to watch, it does give us pause to think. For there is a very real danger that the incoming Labour Party will be just as nepotistic, equally prejudiced and every bit as discriminatory as the Government of Half the People, by Half the People, and for Half the People, that Labour may or may not be replacing soon.
But in turn, all this means is that five, 10, 15 or even 20 years down the line, uninvolved spectators will be settling back in their armchairs with their own buckets of salted popcorn, ready to enjoy the spectacle of a whole new generation of panicky “bazuzli”, each desperately beseeching us all to vote Labour because otherwise it will be Fire..! Brimstone..! Darkness..! Devils..!

Now honestly. Who on earth ever said that Maltese politics was boring?

One last thing
Seeing as – not unlike a certain PN candidate before me – I have shamelessly plagiarised parts of this article from an unsuspecting source, you can enjoy the original masterpiece in all its self-deprecating brilliance over here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AlH2oYedfk