Rearing crying crocodiles

The March 8 referendum outcome could not have been better for the Nationalist Party - an overwhelming majority in favour would have made party supporters complacent. It could have also led the MLP to reconsider its strategy and accept the people's will.

This would have been welcome by some Nationalist leaders like the Prime Minister who believe that Malta's future lies within the EU. At the same time though, this would have left the party strategists without a convincing reason why the PN ought to be re-elected to power.

Now that Dr Alfred Sant is maintaining that he is not considering the referendum outcome as a clear vote in favour of membership, it is evident that all the 143,094 who voted Yes (PN, AD and also some MLP voters) must vote PN for it to win the general election. Had the Yes majority been overwhelming, such an urgency would not have been felt at all.

Adieu AD

Poor AD. Its candidates were ready to stay out of the election process and fight side by side as mere canvassers in an alliance with the PN but they were not even thanked for their compliant self-denial.

The PN knows perfectly well that in a polarised atmosphere, the bigger parties tend to crush the smaller ones. Who wants to throw his vote away in such circumstances by voting for a party without any chance of obtaining a seat? AD is set to be the first victim sacrificed on the EU altar in Malta.

AD has no alternative but to urge voters to give it at least second preferences. AD would welcome a PN victory; its leaders would smile and declare that AD has won too because now Malta has joined the EU. It all shows that AD has never really managed to be a third force as an alternative to the two main parties.

However, AD's decision to contest the election could result in neither of the two parties obtaining more than 50 per cent of the valid votes cast, without AD itself gaining a seat. In such a case, our Constitution provides that the party obtaining a relative majority of votes will obtain a majority of seats. In the remote possibility of AD obtaining a seat, however, with neither of the two parties winning more than 50 per cent of the votes, it is the party holding a majority of seats or obtaining the support of the majority of seats, which can then form a government.

The underdog

The real obstacle is the MLP and its united strength. Therefore the PN has undertaken the task of dividing the MLP with some success even though the strategy is quite transparent. First there were many appeals for MLP supporters to come out and speak in favour of the EU.

Now there is the far-fetched call for MLP supporters to get rid of their own leader once and for all. They only need to vote PN in order to achieve this. PN guru Michael Falzon declares that it is no longer "us against them" but "all of us" against "him" (The Times, March 21).

This misguided campaign culminates in stating that Dr Sant has hijacked his party. PN is interpreting the unity within the MLP as a successful attempt by Dr Sant to silence all internal criticism. Apart from the fact that the PN is not exactly the champion of self-criticism, even though the PM has sought 'forgiveness' from hurt Nationalists, one cannot but reflect how the PN used EU membership as a pretext for all its omissions.

Everything has been brought up. Recollections of the Seventies and Eighties just because Dr Sant showed up at Ta' Qali during the counting process on March 9 not wearing blue jeans. Democracy must be defended and the PN is the champion of democracy! But rest assured that everything would turn out well for Malta when the PN goes on reigning for 20 years with a short intermezzo of 22 months.

Something is telling me that all this demonisation is continuing to paint Dr Sant as the underdog with whom many are increasingly (though secretly) sympathising. This could translate into some surprises after Saturday's general election. Dr Sant has managed to present a politics of addition. He addressed segment by segment of the electorate and offered them a viable option for the near and mid-term future.

He has also partly succeeded to unveil the sad state of our finances, how work is conspicuous by its absence, how wealth is increasingly being distributed among the chosen few, and how seriousness had never been a Maltese category and by no means a PN one. At best the PN is seriously tired. He could also have the cheek to tell his supporters well in advance to celebrate with calm without burning billboards and without destroying any property and without doing harm to anybody.

Dr Sant is considered the underdog; so society will be more likely to accept his antics. But PN leaders are acting below their stature by going for Dr Sant's throat entangling themselves in silly diatribes against the underdog. People love the underdog; they love the underdog fighting the system; but they don't like Goliath beating David on his head. Dr Fenech Adami has been prime minister forever; the other only had a two-year break. So you can imagine who is Goliath and who is David in the voters' minds, and why the voters cannot treat them equally.

The jokers

With its antagonising strategy the PN is unlikely to hold all 143,094 Yes voters. Some candidates have understood this on their own lower scale. One cannot beat a powerful contestant of the same party by declaring outright war against him. The clever candidates go out for an alliance with the same contestant with the hope of inheriting his or her vote.

Admittedly the PN has understood that by forging an alliance with AD it would not add to its vote. But on the other hand its insistence of going it alone under the label of "national campaign" would not go through for a second time now. And worse still, the antagonising campaign against Dr Sant while at the same time pretending to make an alliance with "all reasonable" MLP voters is bound to boomerang.

In the EU referendum voters, in their majority, have responded Yes. There is no need to say that the bottle labelled "national campaign" contained mainly PN intents. Yes voters are now cornered to vote PN in the national interest although I now have serious doubts whether genuine MLP pro-membership voters would decide in favour of the party that hijacked the EU issue for its purposes.

At the height of the election campaign the PN would be presenting more of the same and less of the real picture of the state of our country and economy after it has been in office for over 14 years. People can no longer hear that the EU is the all inclusive cure for Malta.

No the EU would not come to our rescue. And the PN is highly mistaken if it is thinking that the EU would pull it by the hair before drowning.

By its own negotiated standards, a future PN government should soon be in a position to bring the country in line with its EU contenders. It is enough to say that to achieve the Maastricht criteria and introduce the euro by 2007, Malta would have to undergo tougher austerity budgets than the ones we had during the last years while at the same time it would have to abide by its subsidy promises to the dockyards, farmers, fishermen, to enterprises and for food prices.

The ailing state finances would be felt especially in the health, pension and education sectors and in the deteriorating infrastructure and environment. Reforms in these sectors have been held back in order not to disturb our way to Brussels. They would have to be tackled soon but I doubt whether the pledged seriousness and dynamism needed for such reforms is to be found within the PN ranks. These interests of national importance do not top the PN electoral agenda.

If Malta sees EU membership go down the drain, the PN should have at least five years in Oopposition to examine why it has left everyday life on these islands deteriorate in such a way as to remind us of the Seventies and the Eighties (power cuts, state of the roads, "friends of friends").

It should ask itself why it had organised such a transparent strategy of safeguarding its re-election by exploiting the EU issue (the PN is now maintaining it is the other way round). Finally the PN has to ask itself why it has not found a better alternative strategy to overcome the MLP instead of the puerile one of demonising Dr Sant.

Any tears shed for having missed the EU boat would be predominantly crocodile tears within PN quarters before having an adequate answer to these questions.