Back to his old tricks again...

Inaugurating a new hall in the Hamrun Malta Labour Party club last Friday week, Alfred Sant hinted that an early election is a distinct possibility because the present administration is already "out of breath".

Anyone who stops for a few seconds and ponders on this astounding statement would probably go and check whether it was actually made less than four months after the MLP's defeat in the April general election.

Not only was it made, last Monday, the GWU daily l-orizzont, followed up on this statement by dedicating an editorial headed with the question: Will they stay on for five years? (Jaghmlu hames snin?)

The editorial started off by admitting that the first reaction for Dr Sant's statement was that his was a hurried judgment, but then explained that Dr Sant's "statement" was based on the facts that we are seeing unfolding all around us. Of course, describing Dr Sant's wild speculation as a "statement" (stqarrija) gives the game away.

Looking back, one finds that the MLP leader and some of his more faithful followers - such as Manwel Cuschieri in his infamous radio programme - repeatedly dangled the possibility of an early election for most of the four and a half years after the September 1998 elections.

It is obvious that this was simply a ruse intended to raise the morale of MLP grass-root supporters by misleadingly raising their hopes and have something to look forward to. What better hope could they have than by shortening the full five-year period constitutionally allowed for each administration?

I do not know whether the trick managed to keep the party faithful happier for their false hopes, but for Dr Sant to repeat the trick barely 100 days after his electoral defeat to me seems like scraping the bottom of the barrel.

It is moreover the irony of ironies for Dr Sant to start enticing his followers once again with the 'promise' of an early election when the only short-lived administration in the past 40 years in Malta was Dr Sant's 22-month fling in power.

While Dr Sant keeps ranting about what he depicts as the present administration's dismal first 100 days, party insiders are asking how the MLP has presented a number of 'studies' on Government's performance to the public since it was elected, yet has not yet produced the promised analysis of what led to the MLP's dismal electoral performance.

In his regular column in this newspaper, Lino Spiteri last Sunday claimed this electoral loss was the result of the MLP leadership not heeding what its opinion polls had been telling it for months. Mr Spiteri even ventured to speculate that had the MLP "let the EU issue be decided by a referendum, though it could have lost that, it could very probably have won the general election".

Although quite short and sweet, at the end of the day that is as good as any analysis on its last electoral defeat that the MLP will be getting from anyone else.

Although Mr Spiteri did not spell it out, it is obvious that most of the responsibility for the misjudgment that the MLP made on the EU issue must fall on Dr Sant. That is why in his articles, Alfred Mifsud keeps on harping that the election of the leader should have taken place after the conclusion of the analysis of what led to the MLP defeat.

He even recently extended his argument by recalling that when the MLP executive took the decision to hold the leadership election before delving into the whys and wherefores of the party's electoral defeat, it was labouring under the impression that the outgoing party leader - Dr Sant - was not going to contest the election!

Yet, while arrows fly all around him, Dr Sant just sits back through thick and thin and, in the coolest of relaxed manners, resorts to his old bag of tricks by starting to raise the hopes of the party faithful that the day when their party will be in power need not be five years away.

The party faithful might indeed swallow the bait, hook line and sinker. But will this get the MLP any nearer to winning the next election?

Or will it just become a party that Evarist Bartolo - writing in l-orizzont also last Friday week - described as being only capable of committing suicide if it hands a victory to the PN in 2008 by leaving the EU issue open? - Ikun partit kapaci biss joqtol lilu nnifsu jekk l-MLP irebbah l-elezzjoni tas-sena 2008 lill-PN billi jhalli l-kwistjoni tas-shubija fl-UE miftuha.

It is obvious that Mr Bartolo does not think that the next general election is round the corner. In fact, he compares the MLP's present predicament with the long years that the Labour Party in the UK had to endure in Opposition because it kept on refusing to move towards the centre of the political spectrum.

And, isn't it uncanny how Dr Sant talked about an early election the same day Mr Bartolo's article was published in l-orizzont, when this article makes it quite plain that the MLP must work towards winning the 2008 election?

Perhaps Dr Sant is just keeping his box of old tricks to himself without sharing them with anyone else!