2008 is officially Malta’s first internet election. Candidates held parties in wine bars just to tell people that they had set up their own website. The parties’ main websites were revamped. The news portals were taken up a gear in a bid to bring more of their news slants to a wider public. And Facebook allowed American-style canvassing to get into touch with the fickle world of web-conscious youths who spend more time on the internet than watching NET TV or ONE TV.
Even blogs reached fever pitch, amongst them the long standing j’accuse blog by Jacques Rene Zammit, whose guest commentator Daphne Caruana Galizia and the crud she’s been spewing against Labour and AD voters has turned his blog posts into 100-comment wonders, thanks to the Daphne hysteria that has invaded the blogs and email rounds.

All about Lawrence
There is no doubt it’s the Gonzi camp that has made the most extensive use of the internet, compressing the solipsism of the prime minister into his very own GonziPN brand with a website that leaves no aspect of his electoral bid unknown.
A live animation of Gonzi welcomes web users to his website, with the latest news and the latest billboard (this week: Gonzi brings jobs) on the front page. Gonzi has an online forum where you can ask him questions directly in the evening.
A series of Q&A videos feature actors asking Gonzi the most pressing questions. Thanks to editing, Gonzi cuts in right at the end of the answer with a focused but rehearsed answer with lots of ‘decisive’ finger-pointing. You can see the PM’s latest interview on TV, his latest press conferences, his day-in-the-life of an incumbent, his life biography – it’s a frontal attack of digitised Gonzi to make sure you’re not missing out on anything he is saying and proposing.
It doesn’t stop there: you can follow Gonzi around thanks to his calendar of events; see what the PM is thinking on his personalised blog (and even his wife Kate’s too); check out the PN candidates in your town or district (the pictures of each set of candidates have Gonzi standing in front); read about the PN’s proposals and vision for their next legislature; download anything Gonzi-related; and has a direct link to the PN’s electoral office.

Outed on Facebook
It’s far-reaching to the extent of having its own Facebook application. The Lawrence Gonzi supporters’ group has 1,646 supporters, while 1,021 members are also in the PN’s Facebook group and 219 members have added the ‘I Support PN’ application.
While the presence of Malta Labour Party groups is less conspicuous than the PN’s – there is an MLP group of just 174 members and Sant’s personal profile is not visited much, suggesting the unpopularity of Facebook with the Labour vote – Gonzi’s Facebook army commands just 9.3% of the Maltese subscribers on Facebook. Ira Losco has, thankfully, more friends than Gonzi.
And like so many other candidates, Alternattiva Demokratika candidates have made extensive use of Facebook too, sending out group and activity invitations and posting Harry Vassallo’s opinions, AD videos and blog entries from AD candidates’ personal websites and blogs. At 564 friends for the AD friend profile, that’s one-third of Gonzi’s ‘friends’ – not bad.

Not so funny
The ugly side of the first internet election has been the disappearance of di-ve.com, Malta’s most popular news portal, whose coverage of the general elections was stopped by its management under pressure from the government – right in the week that the PN’s own news portal maltarightnow.com was revamped and accompanied by an English-language version. While the Nationalist party was refining its own internet onslaught for the election, di-ve.com, which had reported the 2003 election and referendum campaigns, suddenly halted election coverage, reportedly for having leaned too far towards Labour according to government officials. GO management – now under their new owners from distant Dubai – seemingly obliged, with company CEO David Kay refusing to answer any question on why GO’s news portal had been gagged.
The other problem to the internet election is the deliberate blurring of lines between the public and the private, something which has been vehemently exploited by Labour. First was the not-so-humorous condom joke posted onto Facebook by an assistant of the Nationalist MEP David Casa. Despite being a tired internet joke derived from American politics which had been around for years, Labour chose to come out complete with press release and a news item featuring a grave and serious Jason Micallef expressing condemnation on a lame piece of humour.
Only yesterday, the intrepid investigative sleuths at One News pasted personal Facebook photos of Michael Frendo’s daughter during a PN activity – in her group of friends was another son of Daphne Caruana Galizia: big news then. This is when the banality of political news reporting fails to make a distinction between what really interests viewers and what is simply voyeurism. Word to the wise: change your privacy settings, you idiots.

And always funny
Youtube.com has come up with great pieces of amateur video-editing. First it was Alfred Sant’s Gooooonzi drone at the Birzebbugia rally last September, prompting videos from Nationalist activists outlining “the difference between Sant and Gonzi”. The Labour activists hit back, with clips from the 1960s aimed at rekindling memories of Nationalist and Church hegemony exercised against labour voters of the time.
Budding video editors have had some impressive video archive to raid. There are clips of anything worthy of note in the last election – Mintoff raging against cameramen at the electoral office; the PN hags from Qormi chanting for Gonzi; one of the clips is a mash-up of angry political leaders: Sant playing drums with a microphone in one hand or his infamous diatribe against Mintoff; the latter in his twilight in a face-off with a plump Michael Falzon on national television over the Delimara power station; Louis Galea picking his nose with judicious fingering; George Pullicino dancing.
But the funniest has to be the MGM superimposition with Labour deputy leader Michael Falzon – a man where gaffes are never far behind – positioned instead of the MGM lion as he hollers out an ‘ole, ole, ole’ chant to Labour supporters during last Sunday’s mass rally. It cuts straight into slow-mo with a lion’s roar dubbed over the ever so loquacious Dr Falzon. Thank socialism for a man like Falzon: when the man’s stuck for words he starts singing.

The campaign on internet
Nationalist Party - www.pn.org.mt
Malta Laboru Party - www.mlp.org.mt
Alternattiva Demokratika - www.alternattiva.org.mt
Azzjoni Nazzjonali – www.azzjoninazzjonali.org

Michael Falzon’s lions
www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kiZ6qKKat4
Sant’s Goooonzi flop
www.youtube.com/watch?v=HL2wSBe2q2E&feature=related≈
George Pullicino’s Euro Dance
www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RQzPdtesqU&feature=related
Il-‘hamalli’ tal-PN
www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOaCqJmbDJM&feature=related