The announcement made last week by the Prime Minister that the government intends to launch an early consultation process with the public on the budget has brought about more speculations about the date of the next general election. The most common guesses are based on an appointment for October/November this year or, alternatively, February/March next year. It all boils down to the introduction of the euro and its impact on the standard of living, inflation and the economy in general.
It may be premature at this stage to guess what the Prime Minister and his closest aides have in mind, but one thing is certain. The writing is on the wall: We are heading towards a hot electoral campaign where the issues that matter would not be debated but just skimming the surface. The target won't be the message but the messenger.
The indications are that this campaign will be dominated by the-blame-the-other syndrome. It is going to be a negative electoral campaign where further polarisation would be unavoidable. The major political parties have already embarked on a strategic plan aimed primarily at discrediting the other parties or their leaders. By the end of the campaign we would realise what cheap politics are all about but then it would be too late in the day!
As if it is not enough to go through the uncertainty, the economic stagnation, the political divisiveness and the social adverse repercussions that inevitably ensue once a general election is called, the political parties are already in electoral mode and practically have initiated their "unofficial" partisan campaigns at the expense of the electorate in general and the national interest in particular.
Listening to the party leaders' Sunday political homily during their "preaching-to-the-convinced" encounters is a good taste of what to expect in the coming months - political rhetoric, flimsy accusations, personal attacks and cheap propaganda.
I bet there would not be one single television debate on the parties' electoral programmes. Most probably, the manifesto would be made available to the public only for formality's sake, without adequate time for the citizen to study the proposals and objectively reaching a mature decision.
It is more likely that from now on the media would produce discussion programmes that literally offend the intelligence of the viewers or listeners as it did few days ago during Bondì+. It was farcical and ridiculous to watch the guests and the programme host pointing fingers at each other on issues that had nothing to do with the subject on the agenda! If our political exponents think that is the way how to do politics and how to attract the electorate's support then we have to admit we learnt nothing from our past mistakes.
Today's electorate is not impressed with going for the pound of flesh. Who cares whether Joe Saliba doesn't see eye to eye with John Dalli or whether Alfred Sant considers his deputy Michael Falzon as a potential threat. What difference would it make to the ordinary citizen's way of life if Jason Micallef failed to pay his membership fee for the past three years?
Surely, this is not what the electorate wants to hear from our politicians! If anything, leaked internal party affairs show the sorry state in which our major political parties operate and the electorate, rightly so, has every right to question their credibility when they boast of their preparedness to run the country in the most efficient way and in the interest of all the citizens.
We all remember the recent story about the Dubai visit by the Labour officials who were allegedly accompanied by a handful entrepreneurs or contractors. It made headlines and day after day we were shown footages of the Labour delegation mingling with the businessmen and artistic impressions of their hotel rooms during their stay. Is there anybody who really knows what the outcome of this political mission was?
Was it a wise move by the Labour Party aimed at encouraging the SmartCity@Malta investors to expedite the process of development at Ricasoli and assure them that they would get full support if there would be a Labour government in the near future? This is what the electorate wanted to know but the whole issue was turned upside down and it revolved on whether there was enough transparency on the part of the MLP on the selection of the businessmen! Once again it is cheap politics in the making!
The latest controversy on the workings of the National Statistics Office is another case in point. The opposition party was in duty bound to raise certain questions on the adjustments or revisions of statistics published by the NSO. Even if this office was justifiably rectifying past mistakes or technical omissions, the fact that revisions were taking place now and at a relatively fast pace was a matter of concern.
On its part the government, the authority or the NSO were obliged to give public explanations a priori to their remedial actions. But, unfortunately, the issue was thrown straight into the partisan political arena with the result of putting the NSO's credibility at stake!
Immediately after the resignation of Gordon Cordina, the Nationalist Party accused the MLP with foul play and character assassination in attacking the person occupying the headship of the office. The MLP retaliated by accusing the government of intrusion in the proceedings of the NSO to gain political mileage and also published (and distributed to the embassies accredited to Malta) its own technical report shedding more doubts on the figures published. And what was the end result? No solutions but simply cheap ping-pong politics!
The electorate would be quite generous to consider our politicians as wiseacres if they intend to conduct their electoral campaign in such a feeble manner!
matyas@maltanet.net