Anyone for tennis?

When things are hotting up in a drawing-room comedy and the plot seems to be rapidly degenerating into an unseemly slanging match, the Bertie Wooster type in tennis gear strolls casually in through the French window, swinging a racquet and blithely asks: Anyone for tennis? That usually diffuses the situation with its very absurdity.

The local political arena has, of late, rather resembled a tennis match between the two most notorious, bad-tempered and ill-mannered players ever to disgrace the Centre Court at Wimbledon: Ilie Nastase (Nasty to his friends) and the petulant John McEnroe. In all this Sturm und Drang, in all these accusations and counter-accusations, video clips on YouTube and other obfuscations, the electorate is desperately trying to glean an ounce of sense. We need Bertie Wooster and Jeeves as well, desperately, before the situation becomes too dire to take with a pinch of salt.

The latest shebang was the trip that PN general secretary, Joe Saliba, took on contractor Nazzareno Vassallo's yacht. This looked very much like a tit for tat for the heavy PN criticism of the controversial trip by Labour MPs and business-people to Dubai last February. I do not see very much that was untoward about both trips to be quite honest. There are things that are far worse than taking a leaf out of Nicolas Sarkozy's book!

Apart from all this, the parliamentarians and everybody else for that matter know that the elections are just on the horizon. Only a few days ago the Leader of the Opposition wrote an article in these hallowed columns entitled Prospect Forward Movement that gave a very vague idea of Labour's Plan For A New Beginning which, try as I might, I failed to make head or tail of, till, at the end Dr Sant, regaled us, yet again, with the recent Bright Idea to give Cabinet ranking to the chairman of the Malta Council for Economic and Social Development, something that the present incumbents say is old hat! What sort of electoral appeal that has on the Peppas and Guzis in the street beats me! I have no idea how Dr Sant and his party are going about concocting a foolproof plan to run the country in ticketyboo fashion if its based on what I read last Wednesday, all of which sounded, for the most part, like lampuka pies in the sky.

Therefore, dear readers, as they say, better the devil you know well than the one you know only slightly.

If one had to list and enumerate all the projects the PN has completed or is in the process of completing since 1998, when after the brief MLP blip they were returned to power, anyone with an ounce of sense cannot do otherwise except vote for more of the same rather than create an upheaval of monumental proportions by voting MLP. What Jason Micallef said on that infamous video clip on that marvellous invention, YouTube, was, that, true to form, the MLP, at the end of the day, will be a government for Labourites. As we all know only too well that will entail a massive shift not only in posts of power and influence but also in the lowlier ones as the changing of the guard has its ripple effects.

This is the type of situation that most people dread whenever the word "election" is mentioned. The total political upheaval which in a small country like Malta is far reaching and very unsettling. I am very small fry in the political firmament and, yet, in all those years in the bank my life was determined by politics and there was little or nothing I could do to change it. That is why I left; long before retirement age. I had been bitten once too often. Like me, there are thousands upon thousands of people whose lives will be affected by a change of government and that is why sometimes it is better to opt for the status quo much as one is totally bored of it!

I was under the impression that when I voted for Malta to join the EU our antiquated social laws would soon be liberalised. I also thought that maybe the next time round the electorate would not have to vote with a gun to its head.

I envisaged a much larger group of floating voters for the 2008 election, leaving the hardcore PN and MLP supporters to compete at swaying the electorate by persuading it to vote for the party that offers the best prospects for our country. I thought that with luck it would not make much difference who was in power as long as we had a basic and sound set of rules and regulations to follow.

The election is imminent and nothing radical has changed. The election will be determined not by the promises that one party makes should it come to power, nor will it be swayed by the achievements of the incumbents. The outcome will, as sure as eggs are eggs, be the result of how many people wish to achieve power and position and how many wish to retain them. It's as simple as that.

In the middle of all this there are the disaffected. There are always more disaffected people that support the government in power and who afterwards feel let down. It is not what a party has done for the country but what it has failed to do for the ever-expectant electorate that appeals to the minds and hearts of the people. Therefore, what use is it to boast that, after years and years of working in deficit the government is finally in the black after having introduced every tax that could be invented under the sun, both of the seen and unseen type, to achieve it?

In the past we have had both parties wailing that the other left economic holes and financial chasms. We never took them too seriously apart from the time that Dom Mintoff used to give us unpleasant shocks at Christmastime ordering us to yet again tighten our Gucci belts. This obsession with being a rich government has reduced the spending power and, hence, the quality of life of the man in the street. Is it really worth it?

As things stand at present, uncertainty is the order of day. The slanging matches between a histrionic Nastase and a volatile McEnroe are not doing the country any good. The electorate is not spoilt for choice. The present government, far from perfect, is the only viable alternative simply because, to date, the opposition enjoys a nondescript track record.

Both parties seem to be splitting at the seams and factions with their own and not the country's agendas are in the ascendant. Maybe this time the election will not be swayed by the eminence grise of Tarxien who, in 1996, brought down his own party single-handedly in one fell swoop.

Both parties need to pull their socks up but we must never forget that we must take decisions that are based on facts and not promises. The 1996/98 government was hallmarked by internal strife and a complete turnabout from what was promised to the electorate as people like George Abela and Lino Spiteri were unceremoniously discarded and the prospects of New Labour became very retrograde and old hat indeed showing that leopards do not change their spots. Who knows what would have happened had the ancient one-toothed Lion of Maltese politics not given his final roar thereby forcing Dr Sant to call an early election? The mind boggles!

klzt@onvol.net