Cliques, factionalism, internal discord, sabotage, parochialism, rhetorical nonsense and monotone, repetitive and poor speeches. If only it were an episode from the Sopranos (minus the guns and violence).
But it isn’t: every single keyword here appears in the litany of criticisms in Labour’s 100-page defeat report, which will forever read as the manual for how to lose an election. And from beginning to end, it’s a veritable checklist of political no-no’s, all pointing at Alfred Sant, Michael Falzon, and the over-confident, complacent Jason Micallef, all starring in a motion picture of disarray.

Abandon ship
And it all seemed clear from the start, with the departure of its campaign manager Claude Falzon in September 2007, a move which reflects badly on Falzon but also on the party’s inability to keep the main driver of its strategy on board. Falzon ditched his measly salary at Mile End for a job at the EU Council in Brussels, only to return to help out during the campaign. And in the process, his absence meant Labour was to dismantle its strategy for another one.
Falzon had already identified crucial shortcomings in Labour’s prospects: chief among them was the youth vote, some 34,000 first-time voters. Falzon warned it was important for Labour to address this area. But when he left for Brussels, there was no handover to the new campaign manager, Benny Borg Bonello, formerly the 1996 campaign manager.
To make matters worse, Claude Falzon’s forward-looking ideas seemed to have been ditched completely by the party’s electoral committee, a restricted group of the five highest members constituted on 26 June 2006, made up of Alfred Sant, deputy leaders Charles Mangion and Michael Falzon, secretary-general Jason Micallef and party president Stefan Zrinzo Azzopardi.
All campaign decisions were taken solely by this group, although some recommendations were made by the campaign manager. But the latter’s role was chiefly that of marketing the campaign, and executing the decisions of Sant and the rest of the committee.
While Claude Falzon had authored a creative plan, unanimously agreed upon by Sant and the rest as far back as April 2007, for door hangers, persistent URL letters targeted for youths, bumper stickers, window stickers, and four thematic letters for the entire electorate, none of this ever happened.
What’s more: the electoral manifesto, an abridged version of the Pjan Ghal Bidu Gdid, was never distributed in its entirety. Nor did a leaflet to every voter informing them who were Labour’s candidates in their district. Basic textbook stuff.
Falzon even had a plan for an internet campaign, with a weekly email to voters, two hours a week where Alfred Sant spoke via MSN to youths, podcasts, SMS alerts, ads in local and international websites, USB sticks for young voters, even a personal website for Sant that never saw the light of day – all basic weapons that had been employed with ease by the Nationalist Party.
As the commission notes, Sant, Mangion, Falzon, Micallef and Zrinzo Azzopardi fell victim to their insulated “groupthink” – insulated from the people on the street, they shared the same ideas to the extent that they influenced each other into taking the wrong decisions. They never consulted a think tank, or outside intellectuals to help them explore new avenues of thinking or anticipate attacks. Outsiders who demanded they share their expertise with party officials, some even suggested by Sant, were left out by party insiders. Instead the three leaders were busy with their own personal campaigns, “humanly unable to weigh their decisions, what they say and do. Modern parties leave the campaign to specialists.”

Benny Borg Bonello
Benny Borg Bonello is undoubtedly outed as having been little enthusiastic about employing the media and internet to its full extent, as mapped out by Claude Falzon, whose plans had now been ditched.
While Sant and his men effectively took all the decisions for the electoral campaign, “at times with the campaign manager”, Borg Bonello would wait for their decisions on everything, even billboards – an inflexible arrangement that did not provide a rapid response to PN attacks. “If I had known of this structure I wouldn’t have come,” Borg Bonello complained to the commission.
After Falzon’s departure, Borg Bonello compiled yet another document on Labour’s thematic messages for each week of the electoral campaign. The electoral manifesto however never made it to each household. Replete with mistakes, misprints or outdated pledges, some 2,000 copies were printed in the third week of the campaign, some given out during activities, to councillors and candidates. Some copies were not even collected from the printer. Borg Bonello said amendments were being done right before the general conference.
Lawrence Gonzi’s government in the meantime had already appropriated several measures from the Pjan Ghal Bidu Gdid in its Budget 2007; and yet Labour’s manifesto still contained outdated items. No wonder it never made it the households.
Borg Bonello even authored Labour’s ballerina imagery, the young girl on the billboards that would blossom into a young woman “looking towards a new direction… a new beginning”. But the message was not understood, the commission notes, despite its positive vibe. Unlike Gonzi’s personalised billboards, there were no Labour billboards inspiring faith in Sant himself.
Instead the campaign went into negative mode, despite Claude Falzon warning in 2007 that 30% to 40% of voters were looking towards the future with optimism. A plan to balance out positive and negative news items on a 70:30 ratio was ignored, not helped by the badgering style of One News reporters.
And after Falzon left, the party stopped organising focus groups, failing to qualitatively assess what the people wanted.
“While the polls were showing the people wanted a ‘change’, Labour seemed to think that it was meant to win by default”: this complacency meant that Labour never understood what sort of change people were truly aspiring to, and with mistakes in its policies such as its overtime and reception class proposal, Labour was reinforcing a perception of unpreparedness to govern.
Jason Micallef: complacent and secretive
Labour’s secretary-general oozed confidence right up to election day, when in the morning before counting started, he predicted a comfortable Labour majority. As supporters poured out into the street in premature jubilation, little did they know how hasty and precocious Jason Micallef had been.
Labour’s electoral fortunes were changing, reflected in MaltaToday’s own surveys. Firstly, no polling of mobile phone numbers (and therefore young people) had taken place, severing any contact with the opinion of first-time voters. Secondly, Labour was losing out on surveys dealing with themes such as the environment, health, and education.
Micallef, seeing Labour’s lead diminishing the closer election day got, apparently did nothing to change party strategy. While Labour’s polls still suggested a comfortable majority right up to the last week, buoyed by the Mistra scandal and government plans to make people pay for health services, it was apparent that “some human error” had misconstrued the survey results.
Micallef is revealed to have kept the survey results close to his chest, and known to a few people. Not even Alfred Sant was thoroughly briefed about the polls. And although nothing stopped the leadership from learning more – belying Michael Falzon’s claim that the polls were kept away from him – nobody bothered to find out. Indeed, Alfred Sant decided “he did not need to discuss the opinion polls unless there was something out of touch with what the party was feeling during the election.”
Despite having a lot on his plate, criticism of Micallef by party grassroots and lower-level members sounds rife. Many found it difficult to contact him by phone. Experiences volunteers such as professionals and academics were not utilised. Efforts to consolidate the local committee network – the party’s own ears to the ground – were described as “poor”.
Negative comments described party officials as “demigods”, “arrogant”, and one Gozitan delegate saying “they only come to Gozo to collect money.”

Media confusion
Labour’s bittersweet relationship with the independent is given a very revealing autopsy by the commission, notably with its reflection on the role MaltaToday and sister publication Illum played during the election:
“It’s time the MLP realises that the independent media cannot be pigeon-holed. Instead of whipping those who criticise it and emphasise its own disadvantage, it must build bridges and work with those who play fair. For example, despite MaltaToday and Illum being critical – at times with good reason – it was shown many a time that they were less susceptible to the spin and propaganda of the government and the PN.”
But instead, Labour’s infighting was flung wide open in the newspapers and TV. Their libel suits angered the media; and they did not even branch out to unaffiliated journalists who shared left-wing ideas and who predicted the party wasn’t heading towards certain victory.
In its own stable, Labour’s communication with its media house One Productions is described as “defective”. Borg Bonello especially “appeared as never wanting to base elements of the campaign on the strength of the media”.
Even proposals by One’s head of news Miriam Dalli to reduce the dose of partisan politics were ignored outright, “aborted without even being born. It was suggested to her that things stay as they were.”
Instead, Labour kept up its grassroots appeal, ignoring the 70:30 ratio to balance out negative reporting. And the badgering style of One News reporters “sticking the microphone into Nationalist politicians’ faces” appeared to be nothing but a tactic of harassment which “diminished the party’s credibility with floaters and in particular the youth vote” – especially when it came to the university debate in which students were criticised by One News.
Undoubtedly, Labour was disadvantaged at the hands of PBS. While Bondiplus is outlined as having broadcast numerous editions which did Labour no favours, Dissett on the other hand, PBS’s own in-house current affairs programme, was critical and fair.
But Labour also shot itself in the foot, with its own columnists writing in The Times and The Malta Independent showing “a lack of ability in writing, or presenting arguments of a low level, which reinforced negative perceptions of Labourites” – undoubtedly a reference to stylistically lamentable contributors like Anthony Licari or Lorna Vassallo.
Even Alfred Sant is not spared for his “decision to cynically entitle his articles in The Times with words starting with ‘PR’, for many years, did not help and certainly did not encourage readers to read what he was talking about.”

Losing the internet war
Undeniably, one of Labour’s major faults was its inability at harnessing the interactivity and effectiveness of the internet, which cost it the vote of the 18-22 age bracket. Maltastar.com was not interactive enough and only uploaded its news items late in the evening.
While the PN harnessed its futuristic ‘smartcity’ and ICT-led vision, Alfred Sant’s visibility suffered at the hands of Gonzi’s increasing persona on the web. The PN was strategically superior with the launch of the personal website www.lawrencegonzi.info and www.elezzjonigenerali.com, with Gonzi and his wife Kate blogging and interacting live on the internet. While the PN employed the power of doggedly pro-Nationalist bloggers, Labour was totally absent from the guerrilla virtual landscape.
Social networking sites like Facebook were not used enough by Labour, which instead was more presence on the lowbrow Hi5, which however offers much less interactivity than Facebook, where the PN dominated. Its absence from Facebook meant it missed out on the territory of some 18,000, mostly young, Maltese voters.
And then came the broadcasting network site YouTube, consigning Alfred Sant’s antics in Birzebbugia and Michael Falzon’s buffoon-like hollering in Floriana to the annals of ridicule.

Sant – a damaging legacy
If anything characterises the lack of faith in Alfred Sant, it was the fact that he did not feature on a single Labour billboard, instead finding himself portrayed negatively on the PN billboards.
With the PN employing a presidential-style campaign aimed at highlighting Gonzi’s persona with the GonziPN epithet, emphasising his charisma and the “peace of mind” he inspired, Sant was unable to get the better of his opponent, as confirmed even in MaltaToday popularity rankings.
But Sant had history against him, the commission notes. A serial loser of elections, his campaign against European Union membership, the fact he did not resign after the 2003 electoral defeat, and the cliques that characterised the Labour leadership, negatively impacted upon his credibility. “Voters who never voted for Labour asked themselves how could they vote for Labour if they did not even have control over its own members, not even at its highest levels”.
The commission even said Sant’s re-election in 2003 “lost the party the sense of security and confidence it had before 1996”, and that some of their interviewees had viewed his return as “an act of sabotage against the party”, sowing a climate of antipathy. “In time, this climate turned into black comedy built on suspicion and paranoia.”
Despite the destabilising factionalism, Sant is described as “clearly not having the strength and moral authority to stop this internal rotting of the party.” With the media enjoying the exposure of Labour’s internal discord, the commission notes, Labour’s infighting soon turned into “a black comedy”.
Without a united leadership, Sant’s image suffered. The commission noted that his efforts at dismantling Dom Mintoff’s cult of personality, ultimately punished Sant himself. In the meantime, he was left fending for himself both at the university debate and when facing Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando at the PBS studios, because there was nobody to scout the “physical and psychological” environment that the leader had to face. Sant was seen as “weak, running from confrontation and losing control of the situation”.
Even loyalty to Sant diminished. The PN machine milked the internal discord with Michael Falzon, building up Sant’s internal rival to his expense. Appearing with the party’s highest officials at all times, while Gonzi dominated the PN campaign, gave a confused impression of who was really the party leader. Charles Mangion and Michael Falzon were highlighted as having spent their energies on their personal campaigns.
Although not a cause in the defeat, the commission noted that Sant’s unfortunate sickness, having to undergo the harrowing ordeal of surgery right before the election, affected his level of activity and personal meetings with constituents, while Gonzi tirelessly campaigned everywhere he went.

Michael Falzon’s costly mistake
It’s not hard to identify the looming shadow of Michael Falzon, the deputy leader for party affairs, in the scheme of defeat. If anything, many of the misgivings about Falzon’s penchant for empty rhetoric, tried and tired soundbites, the factionalism that the PN used to denigrate the Labour leadership, the leaks of party secrets to the PN media for which the Falzon camp was squarely blamed, are strewn across the entire report.
As deputy leader for party affairs, by statute Falzon was bound to coordinate the party administration with the party candidates: a role which in theory was compromised by the fact that Falzon himself was busy canvassing as a candidate in his own right in the second and tenth districts.
By the commission’s own admission, it seems Falzon himself brought his own role into question: a lot of feedback to the commission concerned whether the role of deputy leader for party affairs was even required any longer, when it often overlapped that of the secretary-general.
But Falzon was also the main architect of Labour’s electoral office, itself earning a lot of criticism from the commission: it found that the electoral office had been lackadaisical about identifying the 32,000 new voters in the election; updating its voter database (20% of which believed to be incorrect); monitoring whether overseas voters were eligible to vote or not; encouraging voters to collect their voting documents; not booking Air Malta flights to fly in voters (unlike the PN’s Elcom); not flying in workers based in Dubai to vote. The commission estimates the shortcomings at the electoral office to have cost Labour 7,000 votes.
Even the Assistant Electoral Commissioners it appointed were described as “inexperienced”, not even controlling the situation in the counting hall when 100 batches of 50 votes each of an MLP candidate were erroneously placed in another candidate’s pigeon-hole, “and it had to be a Nationalist to realise it”.
But Falzon’s greatest shortcoming will surely be his misguided decision to extend voting time by an hour, without even consulting Alfred Sant or Charles Mangion. It was the PN which raised fears of long queues in Valletta, Zejtun and Marsa at around 3pm and 4pm.
Falzon took the decision to extend the voting time, when it appears the Electoral Commission could have put voters’ mind at rest that they would have all the time they need to vote.
But the extra hour helped the PN, the commission ominously declares, “with Gonzi himself calling people right up to the last minute to go out and vote”. Proof of this is the fact that 14 Assistant Electoral Commissioners out of 16 from the third district (Zejtun) confirmed that only three voters voted after 10:15pm.
The long queues had already put off various voters from voting, but instead of getting the Electoral Commission to remedy the situation, the Zejtun debacle was used as an excuse to extend the voting time.
“The business as usual attitude at the (MLP) electoral office surely had a negative effect on the electoral result.
The premise that only Nationalists would be abstaining, certainly influenced this attitude. Undoubtedly, the office needs an audit…,” the commission declares.