Roamer's column

The Leader of the Opposition will want to forget his participation in what turned out to be a comprehensive debacle at the University last Monday. He may wish to sack his campaign team but with what can he replace it? Point is, Labour's act has been so sterile all along, so error-prone, so mistake-ridden, one cannot help wondering whether they have a deus ex machina up their sleeve, uncomfortable though that may be.

For his part, the Prime Minister will not forget Tal-Qroqq where his victory was so complete. His problem now is to avoid falling prey to hubris, or to conclude that the sixes and sevens the Opposition gives every impression of being in, has made life easy for him. With two weeks still to go before the polls, it would be uncharacteristic of him to travel down such a seductive road. His sole purpose in life is to steer away from the belief, held by some, that the crest of the wave he is riding will deposit him on the stairs of Castille. He knows such waves can turn treacherous and must proceed as though this is the first day of the campaign.

So, yes, he must exude confidence if he is to animate his supporters with the promise of victory and he is doing this splendidly. But there are converts still to be made, undecided voters to herd into the Nationalist Party's pen, and sheep that were astray when the election campaign started to be whistled back into the pen. Having said that, it is growing clear that a number of these have returned to the fold, as clear that a number of others still need to be persuaded if he is to ring up a first count in excess of 50 per cent.

Dr Gonzi cannot accept the advice given to Bo-Peep "to leave them alone and they will come home..." He has to yodel away until they hear, recognise and turn back. While he yodels for the next 13 days, his foot-soldiers should be knocking on every door, singing lustily from the same hymn sheet.

One reason among many as to why he is doing so well is that he has struck a chord with his listeners and viewers. They are impressed with what he has achieved, with the objectives he has set himself, with the vision of the future he has held up to them and with his impeccable leadership, pace Cacopardo. They appreciate that Vision 2015 is a logical progression after Vision Europe and Vision euro. Dr Sant's inclination, nay, intention, to muddy the EU scene if he is returned to power ("Inbażżwru ftit min hawn, ftit min hemm") has re-alerted the electorate; the hostages this man gives to fortune.

Truth is Dr Gonzi remains a breath of fresh air. This cannot be said for any of his opponents. Dr Sant has been 16 years in the job and yonks years before that in the administrative caverns of the party; Harry Vassallo no less. Josie Muscat, who returns from a 20-year sabbatical, has placed his bet on a recycling plant.

The manner in which the latter studded one of his answers at the University with Maltese four-letter words, was, is, a measure of the man's sense of articulation.

It is well to remember, then, that the man his opponents are trying to write off, is the newest kid on the block, who, after four, tireless years bringing Malta into euro-shape, has placed a radical set of far-seeing proposals, 350 of these no less, before the electorate for its approval. While so doing he has exhibited a sense of mission and purpose none of his opponents has begun to match. He is showing himself to be tomorrow's man in an encounter with yesterday's political generation.

His party's intention to invest no less than 300 million euros into the environment, his decision to take the Malta Environment and Planning Authority under his wing in the same way he took the country's finances and knocked them into the excellent shape they are in today, the leaps, from a sound platform, into excellence being planned for Malta and Gozo in information technology, health and education, financial services and tourism - what change from this can his opponents offer? What new beginning? The beginning started years ago and is on course for the next chapter.

Nor has Dr Gonzi been easy to worst in debate or at press conferences, last Tuesday's press conference, ably managed by Dr Simon Busuttil, on the theme of education at St Benedict's College. At question time, he was asked to match Labour's target to create 6,000 new jobs. His response was swift and deflating. His government already has 6,000 jobs lined up at Smart City and Lufthansa Teknik and his target for the next five years is 20,000. This ability to trump his opponents has been a hallmark of his campaign.

Labour is still stuck in a surcharge that has now been questioned even by the economist Lino Spiteri, a fellow Cabinet minister who gave up on Dr Sant over the replacement of VAT with CET, in a vat of nonsense over the removal of tax on overtime, in a muddle over a reception policy that will keep students at secondary until the age of 17, with promises in their election manifesto that have already been carried out, with questions about charges on the water meter and electricity rates deliberately unanswered. Sant and Labour have run out of feet to shoot at.

For his part, Dr Gonzi acknowledges that there are warts to be removed. A reference in The Times last Friday to a 'Damascene conversion' on the matter of Mepa may or may not have been snidely meant. I am inclined to think the latter else why add 'as the contributor did, 'no doubt prompted by the need to manoeuvre for electoral advanatge'? Naturally; but it is not the manoeuvre that matters so much as the implementation. Either way, it is worth remarking that such conversions are good. The first one changed the world. Fact is, he is best placed to remove those warts and to take Malta, less blemished and in good health, to 2015.

Carmel's home-coming

Last Sunday's excoriating leader in this newspaper dealt in part and with deadly accuracy with the Cacopardo-AD factor. I would like to view the affair from a different angle, specifically Dr Vassallo's assertion that the man from Mepa had 'come home'. Why, precisely, has Mr Cacopardo found a home in AD?

Dr Vassallo thinks it is '...his realisation that the single-party governments in the past 41 years have rendered Parliament unable to hold the government of the day to account. A vital part of our democratic structure has been absent for four decades.' Then there is the remark that Mr Cacopardo's 'public support of the PN cost him his job in the 1980s'.

The first bit is vintage poppycock based on the myth that a two-party system, of itself, is some cock-eyed invention to which Malta perfidiously subscribes. Only a third party, a third party continues to insist, can save us from its clutches, though quite why this is the case remains a mystery. For one thing, since 1965, the parliamentary opposition and the electorate held the government to account on nine occasions throughout each of the nine legislatures; the tenth comes up in a fortnight's time.

In 1987, when AD was a twinkle in Malta's political scene, the Nationalist party, heroically led by Eddie Fenech Adami lest we forget, turned out a 16-year-old socialist regime that had created a democratic deficit of alarming proportions. There was no need for a third party to bring this about. It was not the democratic structure that was wrong. It was the flawed assumption by Dom Mintoff and his party that the democratic principle of the alternation of power had a disturbing ils ne savent quoi about it.

As to Cacopardo's public support costing him his job, the same and worse can be said for many others. In one case, it was death, in other cases it was wrongful imprisonment, still many others suffered physical and mental violence, others still were transferred from their job. I see no visible signs that any of these, so touched, '(came) home' to the waiting embrace of AD; except Mr Cacopardo. Why?

As I see it, the dismal truth about this homecoming is that it may arguably be regarded as the most opportunistic moment in his career. Question: If the man wished to take up residence with AD, why did he not satiate this desire while still in Mepa employment? Question: If he and the group cry no opportunism was involved, what was the man doing with nine AD guys as backdrop presenting a report he had written for Mepa on the Sant'Antnin recycling plant? Question: Why did he wait 12 months for a very non-Damascene experience and an overpowering sense of mission?

It is my opinion that what drove Mr Cacopardo to turn against his party was not his glamorous assumption of the role of knight in shining armour, but something altogether more prosaic: bitterness over the non-renewal of his contract at Mepa.

His ex-boss who stuck his neck out for his former colleague and insisted on Cacopardo's contract renewal, deplored the action taken by Mr Cacopardo. Joe Falzon went on record to state that the report had "not been concluded...and need(ed) to be revised in light of developments that took place or still have to take place in connection with this case".

He disagreed with the report being used "for political motives"; which it blatantly was; and against making the document public after receiving the advice of no less an office than the Ombudsman that this would be prejudicial to appeals pending against Mepa's decision to approve the plan. Justification by whistle-blowing is not only infantile. It makes a mockery of whistle-blowing and gives it a bad name.

Both Mr Cacopardo and AN leader Dr Muscat once grazed in pastures they shared with the Nationalist Party. Voters today need to be curious as to why either of them unleashed their moorings and to question how loyalty - and more to the point, the quality of that loyalty - entered into their decision, if at all.

A quote from Herman Grech's interview with Dr Vassallo may help. HG. "Do you trust the PN?" HV: "I trust nobody in politics." The question comes forth unbid. Why, then, should we trust him? Or Mr Cacopardo? Or, for that matter, Josie Muscat? Point is that when it comes to opportunism, AD is in there with the best, or the worst, of them. When it came to the crunch, it found it difficult, as last Sunday's leader put it, to '(walk) the walk'.

Chuck it, Carmel.