As Malta moves with accelerated speed towards three electoral consultations, power will shift, if only fleetingly, from the political class to individual voters.

Political party machines will do their best to mobilise the maximum number of voters behind their respective banners. No doubt, there is a range of issues in the name of which politicians will call upon people to follow them in the good fight.

But times have changed. There is no longer so much difference in education and outlook between voters and their elected representatives as there was during the first half of the past century. It used to be argued that the role of the ordinary citizen was to be restricted to the periodic election of representatives equipped to take the hard decisions of government.

Up to 50 years ago, admission to the university offered opportunities to only a handful of well-to-do students per year. The spread of education has been accompanied by an equally dramatic improvement in personal incomes and living standards. Easier communications opened the horizons of the masses. We are all middle class now - or almost, and if not quite so, we are surely heading that way.

The democracies must therefore apply to themselves the argument they used to apply to the totalitarians.

As people are better educated and become more well off, they will not be willing to let a handful of men in the Politburo take all the decisions that govern the country's life. Nor will they be willing to be influenced by the village lawyer or GP or, for that matter, the parish priest.

As the old differences of education, wealth and social conditions blur, it will be increasingly hard to expect people to disarm themselves of their personal persuasions.

Political parties are almost indispensable for the holding of elections. They are the building blocks of the parliaments chosen through the electoral process, but they no longer rule the roost.

In the new agenda of politics, where so much depends on decisions of detail, the power of the lobbyist can produce striking results. Such power could be as corrupting as that of corrupt politicians.

The voter, already irritated at having so little control over his representatives in between elections, will be even angrier when he discovers how much influence special-interest groups are now able to wield over those representatives.

That same voter will be aware that an interloper has inserted himself or herself in the democratic process.

The result is not hard to guess. The voter is increasingly disposed to be all the more appreciative of the importance of making his or her personal stamp on the electoral outcome. His or her judgment will, therefore, be of the essence.

In the good old days, political parties spoke for one or the other of two grand ideas of some variant of the two. They could also claim to be (or accused of being) the voice of a social class. In large part, this is what gave the old political parties their sense of identity and enabled them to claim the loyalty of their supporters.

Much of this has disappeared. There are no longer banners flying in the name of ideology. Class divisions are losing their meaning. Many of the issues that have to be decided are matter-of-fact aspects relating to GDP and the national debt or what have you.

They require more calculation than excitement. In these conditions, fewer people feel the indispenable need of party guidance. They need information which they sift and weigh. They feel that they can rely on their personal judgment to the point that they come to relish the sensation that they have it in their power to swing the pendulum.

All of this involves a slow, evolutionary process. This does not mean that politics is about to become utterly homogenous. There will always be a basic difference between people who think that the most important objective is to make the economy work as efficiently and as profitably as possible and others who will be mindful of the unfortunates who get least benefit from this efficiency.

In other places, ethnic and religious considerations will continue to be the driving force of political parties, with fundamentalism taking the upper hand. This will remind us that ideology has not been abolished. The fact that ideological beasts died or were slaughtered in Moscow and in the former Yugoslavia does not mean that the breed is extinct.

But, where nationalism and religion cease to be dominant, democratic politics mellow and, as they mellow, new horizons open up for the ordinary voter as he or she becomes more knowledgeable about a wide variety of subjects and is capable of using his or her judgment responsibly.

At the last two general elections (and, to a lesser extent, in the last two rounds of local council elections) the so-called Floating Vote made a distinct appearance on the Maltese electoral stage. It left its unmistakable mark and gave notice that it is prepared to throw its weight where it thinks best.

This might induce the political party machines to fight with added frenzy.

The final outcome will not depend on the volume of political rhetoric, nor, even, on the funds at the disposal of the politicians. It will largely depend on the hearts and minds of floating voters who will analyse their own situation and their prospects and who will examine the track record of the gladiators before they cheer them on.

Next time round, promises will be less important than the ability to deliver.

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