A report prepared by a commission set up to examine AD’s dismal election result reprimands AD chairperson Harry Vassallo for not resolving his personal troubles with the VAT department before the election.
Two days before the election, the police served Vassallo with an arrest warrant, after he received a phone call form NET TV questioning him on the court sentence .
This prompted AD to pre-empt a media attack by holding a press conference in which Vassallo revealed that he was handed down a prison sentence for failing to present the VAT receipts of a company which had been inactive for years.
“Entering an electoral campaign with such an issue unresolved was akin to giving opponents a useful weapon to use against AD. It was inevitable that the issue would be raised by AD’s opponents at some point throughout the campaign more so when it concerned the party leader,” the report states.
The report also reveals that “some members” of the executive committee were aware of the situation.
The report absolves Vassallo from any wrongdoing and confirms that Vassallo had prepared all the necessary paperwork to resolve this issue and handed them over to the person effectively responsible for the business. But since this other person did not follow through on his commitments, Vassallo ended up shouldering responsibility.
Significantly the report links Vassallo’s character trait to leave crucial issues unresolved with the party’s failure to collect 30,000 signatures to force a referendum on rent reform.
“The VAT issue is a symptom of unresolved business, which also characterised the rent reform campaign after the 2004 European Parliament election.”
The report describes the campaign to collect signatures for a referendum on rent reform as “a drain on AD’s limited resources given the complexity to explain the arguments that AD was putting forward.”
The report also calls on AD to abandon this campaign but only after informing the public as to the number of signatures collected to date.
AD has so far kept the number of signatures collected as a jealously guarded secret.
The report also reveals that a number of core AD activists were not enthusiastic about this sort of campaign. AD should have limited the matter to a clear proposal in its electoral manifesto where it would have been easier to explain how rent reform would not have resulted in “tenants being kicked out on the street – a scenario which some feared would be the only outcome of rent reform.”
Vassallo’s repeated declarations that AD would elect three or four MPs are also described as unrealistic in the report.
“Talk of electing three or four MPs sounded unrealistic. This made the result attained on the 8 March 2008 all the more sour.”
According to the commission expectations were fed and sustained by an overconfidence built up on the basis of the AD’s successful performance in the 2004 European Parliament elections.
By taking for granted the vote of the 20,000 people who voted for Arnold Cassola in the EP election, AD’s attitude bordered on “perceived arrogance,” the AD report notes.
The commission makes it clear that despite Vassallo’s triumphal assertions, the writing was already on the wall, with MaltaToday’s regular surveys showing AD stuck at 2%.
“It is of no use to raise
expectations irrationally, especially when confronted with a developing trend indicated by independent surveys that had clearly shown AD’s vote as being stuck roughly at the two per cent mark for a whole year prior to the 2008 general elections.”
It also castigates the AD leadership for ignoring the contents of a PN survey, conducted in January 2007, leaked to MaltaToday which showed that the only AD policy which resonated with the electorate was the environment.
On all other issues, the PN survey revealed that AD’s policies were only appreciated by less than three per cent of respondents.
While the Nationalist Party reacted to the survey by “hijacking, lock stock and barrel, AD environmental policies by including most of them in its electoral manifesto,” AD ignored its non-environmental proposals.
AD was “consistently below the electorate’s radar when it came to bread and butter issues such as the cost of living, taxes, law and order, education and employment.”
The commission reprimands AD for neglecting social issues to the point where it does not even have a spokesperson for social policy or health.
“How can a Green and progressive party not take up and discuss the deteriorating employment conditions that various categories are facing?” asks the report.
The report also notes AD’s inability to communicate with voters from the south noting that the party’s mindset is not sufficiently perceived to be in tune to the aspirations and difficulties of the electorate in this region.
“With the party adopting a strategy focused on the North, even AD sympathisers and activists from the south were alienated.”
The report also questions the party’s central electoral plank – that of portraying AD as the coalition party, which was done at the expense of projecting AD as “a liberal, green, forward-looking, progressive, fresh party which promotes civil rights and social democracy.”
It also notes AD’s failure to react to, or amend the strategy, when Lawrence Gonzi completely ruled out a coalition with AD.
“Once again, lack of planning and the failure to explore alternatives if the chosen strategy was torpedoed as was to be expected), resulted in the party being straitjacketed.”
The report also notes the complete absence of an internal bureaucratic structure which led to an ineffective communication between AD and its members as well as the electorate throughout the five years between general elections.
“This is also affecting AD financing which is practically non-existent.”
The Commission appointed by AD’s executive committee was chaired by Carmel Cacopardo and included columnist Claire Bonello and Illum editor Kurt Sansone.

jdebono@mediatoday.com.mt