Hi there. My name is Raphael Vassallo, and… I’m a “galoppin”!

What do you mean, you don’t believe me? It’s true, I tell you. It has to be… because Daphne Caruana Galizia said so, in a comment in The Times’ website on Friday. And if you don’t believe what Daphne tells you, it can only mean one thing. You are either stupid, immature, or both. So there, too!

But… damn it, couldn’t Daphne have told me this before? You see, up until yesterday I was under the impression I was an ordinary, insignificant little nobody, the type who exists only to be exploited by a ruthless network of power-hungry, stop-at-nothing, self-promoting party apparatchiks. But suddenly, and to my intense amazement, I discover that I myself am one of the apparatchiks to begin with. Only now, I find out that all along I could have broken any law I pleased with perfect impunity… snug in the knowledge that, like all other “galoppini”, strings will always be pulled in my defence.
(As long, of course, as “my” party remains in government; failing which, it’s game over for the hapless “galoppin”… which might explain the note of panic that tends to creep into certain people’s articles every five or so years.)

But I am forgetting that not all my readers may be familiar with the curiously equestrian frivolities of Maltese political jargon.
For the unititiated, a “galoppin” is a person who, in one way or another, furthers the cause of a particular political party, usually for his or her own personal gain. The more common varieties include “canvassers”: people who “canvas” over their failure to make a success of their chosen careers, and who instead make it their business in life to secure as much of an electoral advantage as possible for one particular candidate in a particular district. This often extends to bullying individual voters in their own homes, badgering them over the phone, pressuring them to attend the party’s public meetings, among other acts of philanthropy.
If successful, a canvasser will be richly rewarded. The going rate (last I looked) was a senior post in a government department and/or authority of his or her choice – ideally, one which entails the possibility of a small fortune to be made by taking bribes. And in the unlikely event that they are ever caught red-handed, never fear! There will always be some honest Cabinet minister or other, ready to swing in like Tarzan and rescue you from the jaws of even-handed justice.
(Daphne, by the way, knows all about this variety of “galoppin”. She once claimed to be “disillusioned” by the practice; but that seems long ago now.)

Then, of course, there are “galoppini” of another sort altogether. Ask any bar and/or club owner in Paceville. Throughout the 1990s, these hapless people found themselves terrorised in their own establishments by a number of such “galoppini”: each with a nickname straight out of the Larousse Encyclopaedia of African Mammals, and for the most part associated with a single, hugely respected former PN minister – now a best-selling author – whom Daphne Caruana Galizia knows very well indeed.
Such was the reign of terror in those distant days, that one police officer even testified in court that he was too afraid to take any action against these people whatsoever, even though he knew them to be guilty of any number of violent crimes.

And Daphne Caruana Galizia seems to think that one of the above descriptions somehow applies to me. But with an important proviso: for you see, I am no common or garden “galoppin”. Oh no. I am a LABOUR galoppin… and that makes all the difference in the world.

If Nationalist “galoppini” ran an organised criminal racket in Paceville in the 1990s - though the full history of this disgusting state of affairs will probably never be written – the preceding two decades were very much the Golden Age of their Labour equivalents.
Labour “galoppini” have a special place in the hearts and minds of people who, like myself (and, ironically, also Daphne), lived in Sliema during the Labour regime of 1971-1987. I refer to those fine, upright young gentlemen who would shuttle from the Valletta bus terminus to the Sliema Ferries and back, generously intimidating and beating up anyone deemed to be “Tal-Pepe”. And those were the nicer specimens, by the way. Labour “galoppini” also included the unnamed person/s who shot Raymond Caruana dead in 1986. Not to mention the thugs who smashed up the private residence of a certain village lawyer from Birkirkara, whose name now escapes me.

But oh, the joys of self-discovery! There I was, thinking I couldn’t possibly hurt a fly (and not without good reason: I tried hurting a fly once, and the little bugger beat the crap out me); now I find out I am a deranged, homicidal maniac, motivated to commit ghastly crimes only by a quasi-religious devotion to my party “Mexxej”.
So what can I say? I am deeply honoured and flattered to be numbered among those who have dedicated their entire lives to upholding the only truly Maltese virtues: greed, violence, egotism and downright cowardliness.
And by such an authority on the subject, too! For you see, if there is one person in this entire country who knows everything there is to be known about “galoppini” (and for that matter, about everything under the sun, and more), why, it’s Daphne Caruana Galizia.
For instance, Daphne knows only too well about the emergence of a whole new breed of “gallopin”, out there in our ever-changing political landscape: the ones who hover like vultures over websites and blogs, waiting for some poor, unsuspecting 19-year-old first-time voter to pop his head out of his holes in the ground, naively squeaking: “Hey! This is a democracy, isn’t it? So I’m going to exercise my God-given right to vote exactly for whom I please, even if mummy doesn’t necessarily approve. After all, we’re living in a fee country, aren’t we…?”

Free country, my ass. Before the poor little blighters even realise the consequences of their innocent little words… SWOOSH! Down they swoop like Stuka divebombers, the Nationalist vultures, screeching hellishly as they rip their hapless victims limb to limb, and then toss their dismembered remains onto an open bonfire along with all the other traitors and apostates.
Oh, no, you will NOT vote how you choose. You will vote how Daphne Caruana Galizia orders you to vote: otherwise, you will be reviled and spat upon, and held up as an “hate object” (Daphne’s words, not mine) by a woman who has made it her mission in life to keep the reigning government in place… forever. That’s right, folks. Like all true galoppini, Daphne’s motivations are entirely honourable: to encourage division and hatred; to keep the country polarised into an eternity of tribalism; to nurture and sustain an ancient, primordial (and quite frankly irrational) fear of Labour… and why? Because this – in the humble opinion of this particular little “galoppin”, at any rate – is all her future prosperity now depends on.

And this is where a tiny, weeny little doubt sets in. Am I really, as Daphne puts it, a “Labour galoppin”? Because come to think of it, I don’t really tell other people how to vote at all. To be perfectly honest – and this is something that Daphne Caruana Galizia, for all her claims to maturity and intelligence, will never, ever understand – I don’t actually give a monkey’s backside how other people vote. Just as I don’t really give a toss about who, of the equally uninspiring leaders, actually gets to be the next Prime Minister.
And there is a very good reason for my indifference. For one thing, the two parties’ electoral programmes are virtually interchangeable: and on the few points where the two parties differ, I find both equally unattractive.
If re-elected on the strength of a shamelessly solipsistic campaign, Lawrence Gonzi will shovel his own confessional brand of Roman Catholicism down all our throats, until the entire country feels and smells like the inside of the St Peter’s thurible in Rome (Think about it: he already did this without even having won a local council election. Can you imagine what he will be like when he wins the Ultimate Contest, against all odds?)
And if Alfred Sant is elected despite the filthy, filthy campaign mounted against him, then you can rest assured that his will be a punitive and vindictive reign. (And much as I shudder to think of the consequences, I also have to concede that his vindictiveness will be entirely justified).

So there you have it: the great confession of a stupid, immature floating voter. Is that such a difficult concept to understand, Daphne? Because it looks pretty damn simple to me.