Red herring

It is permanently intriguing in Malta how the run up to a general election is taken up more by arguments about who will win than about what the winner will do once in office.

The next general election is still a year or more away and can be held up to August 23 next year. But a debate akin to one in a bookmaker's shop, rather than a policy-makers' meeting, rages on.

In football terms, the pressure is unquestionably on Labour. It has lost five of the last six general elections. The last time Labour was in office for a full term after winning fair and square was 30 years ago. If we go by the two-term government pattern that was supposed to be the disposition of the Maltese electorate, a few months ago a Labour government should have been facing an election after being in office for 10 years, having won in 1996 and theoretically in 2001/2. Yet, Labour has now been in the wilderness, morally or actually, for the best part of 25 years.

Another general election defeat would be devastating for Labour. It would have to face nothing short of a root and branch overhaul of its policies and methods. The leadership of the party and its media would have to face some very sombre music from Labour's loyal supporters, dispossessed of power for so long.

Labour's top brass have displayed ostensible contentment, verging on the triumphal, after the last local elections. Faced with the obvious question, probably even internally, as to how come Labour won the 2002 local elections then lost the next general election a year later, they rejoin that Labour lost in 2003 only "because of Europe".

This line of reasoning is very similar to that in the late 1970s when Labour used to peddle the idea that the Nationalist Party cannot win "without the mortal sin", only for the Nationalists to get an increasing majority of votes in each of the next three general elections.

Now, if the reason for Labour's defeat in 2003 was Europe, the EU question showed dreadful and persistent lack of judgement from Labour over many years. So did the previous early election in 1998 when, two years in government, the economy, taxation, Dom Mintoff, Lino Spiteri and George Abela were so evidently mishandled.

But was the last general election won by the Nationalists just because of the EU membership issue? Though commonly held, is this belief borne out by the facts? Let us look at the evidence that comes out of the figures: the yes vote on March 8, 2003 and the PN vote on April 12, 2003.

The yes vote in the EU membership referendum was 143,094. Going by the impression that the PN won "because of Europe", one would presume that the yes vote, less the AD vote (AD having been as well for a yes), would be the maximum amount of votes the Nationalists would have got in the general election five weeks later. In the last general election, AD obtained 1,929 votes. Thus, the PN should have polled at most 141,000 votes: the 143,000 yes vote less roughly 2,000 for AD.

Don't read the rest of this article just yet. Stop and think for a moment. That's what you believe, isn't it? The PN polled anywhere up to 141,000 votes in the last general election as it won "because of Europe".

No. The PN obtained 146,172 votes in the last general election. These 146,172 votes are at least 5,000 more than the amount it would have polled had it won the general election just because of the EU issue. At least 5,000 voted PN in the last general election without having voted yes five weeks earlier.

A total of 5,000 votes is not insubstantial in the context of Maltese politics and has been the size of the vote majority in several Maltese general elections. (You can check for yourself all the figures quoted in this article on http://www.doi.gov.mt/EN/elections/.)

So did the PN win the last general election because of the EU issue? Or is this just a red herring, distracting people from the real reason why Labour lost the 1998 and 2003 general elections - the real reason which, hidden and unsettled, would still figure in the next general election as well?