There was a time when the Labour party’s media machine would have been justified in decrying the mistreatment of its leader by the PN and its media watchdogs. But it certainly was not last week, when the MLP screamed blue murder simply because Net TV dared make reference to an article written by Alfred Sant himself in The Times.
It is a telling symptom, when a party in government is denied the opportunity to criticise the Opposition leader on matters of pure policy shortly before an election.
But Dr Sant had only just been discharged from hospital after undergoing major surgery the previous week: a fact which the MLP evidently intends to exploit for the purpose of shielding its leader from any from of pre-electoral criticism whatsoever.
So a NET News item regarding Sant’s published views about the timing of the euro changeover – an issue as far removed from health matters as it is possible to be, given the circumstances – was immediately portrayed as grossly unfair, a reprehensible personal “attack” on a man convalescing after a serious operation.
And yet, the news item itself was anything but insensitive. Unlike the similarly reproached Sunday Times article two weeks ago, it made no reference whatsoever to his actual medical condition, and instead limited itself to minimising (with difficulty, it must be said) the central argument of the Labour leader’s opinion column last Wednesday: i.e., that Lawrence Gonzi may have rushed before his horse to market in order to meet his self-imposed January 1 Euro deadline.
Compared to previous, full-frontal assaults on every aspect of Dr Sant’s character – from his wig to his eligibility for an episode of Altered Statesmen, even a book about his presumed psychological defects – this latest inter-party altercation appears trivial and inoffensive in the extreme. But the Labour Party’s press office nonetheless took offence, and in so doing, it also let slip what is likely to be the corner stone of its entire campaign strategy for Elections 2008.
It seems that any mention at all of post-surgery Sant – even if sympathetic, and regardless of context – can and will be interpreted as an attempt at character assassination of the most hateful variety imaginable.
All very fortunate for Dr Sant himself, who can now face an election with an automatic insurance policy against criticism. But as stratagems go, it is likely to backfire, just as all previous demonisation campaigns have similarly backfired on the PN.
One reason is that the official party position on Sant’s illness remains at best contradictory. Judging by the regular, information-free medical “bulletins”, stage-managed by the MLP at Mater Dei, the media strategy was to present the Labour leader’s state of health as improving by leaps and bounds. We were assured by deputy leader Charles Mangion that Sant’s operation would not get in the way of his ability to lead the party to a resounding electoral victory. He had faced it with determination, and the same determination would now carry him through the coming campaign.
This image is hard to reconcile with the message now emanating from the same party loudspeakers, whereby Dr Sant is suddenly so frail that he simply cannot brook any censure of any kind whatsoever.
Another reason is that, despite the howls and moans of the Labour press, media coverage of Sant’s ailment has actually been fairly sympathetic and restrained. Of all the independent papers, only one – The Sunday Times – ventured a diagnosis, on the understandable grounds that the Opposition leader’s health is automatically a matter of public interest. Elsewhere, newspapers such as The Independent on Sunday – including all its external contributors – didn’t even give the operation a passing mention, other than to reproduce verbatim a MLP press briefing on its back page.
And this is precisely why the party strategists may live to rue their over-reaction to the NET story this week. For by placing unreasonable shackles on any attempt to even disagree with Dr Sant ahead of the election, Labour’s spin doctors are likely to obfuscate over a decade of often appalling demonisation, and make us all question whether the Labour leader deserves such exaggerated protection to begin with. Perceived unfairness can always engender sympathy: it worked that way for Alfred Sant himself, on all the countless occasions when his critics reached absolute rock-bottom. It could just as easily work the other way, if the Nationalist Party is forced to contest an election pre-emptively bound and gagged by an unreasonable media blackout.
Above all, however, it is a strategy which can only create the impression that Dr Sant is somehow unable or unwilling to defend his own party’s policies and electoral manifesto. Exactly how this can inspire confidence among the electorate is anyone’s guess.

rvassallo@mediatoday.com.mt