There will be a lot more frenzied shouting in the few days that remain before the bulk of the electorate sallies forth to cast its vote in the general election (and in the local council elections, where they are due to be held simultaneously). One says "the bulk" because, contrary to some expectations, this columnist is of the opinion that, once again, there will be a high turnout.
Rushing to cast one's vote is part of the Maltese psyche. Though much has been made in the last few weeks that there will be thousands of voters who will stay away, voting with their absence in a telling protest, the indications are that any such intention has largely dissipated. That is not to say that disgruntlement has ended or that there will be no protest vote. There will be, to an unpredictable extent.
Nevertheless, it will be shown at the ballot box. There will be those, one does not expect them to be too many, who will cast an empty or spoilt ballot. There will be some who will carry out the lingering, simmering threat to vote against their own - Nationalist - party. But in the main, voters will do what they have generally done before - vote for their old favourite party. They will do so out of conviction or blind allegiance and not because they have been persuaded by the many antics and dark negatives which passed for electioneering in the past few weeks.
The votes that truly count in the balance, to reiterate a long held point, will be those of the new voters. Allowing for the votes that go to the smaller parties - probably not a large number, yet each one of them influential in regard to the big party that loses them - it will be the new voters who will sway the final outcome of the general election, though they may not bother much with the local elections.
Fact is, it is practically all over, bar the shouting. That will go on up to the last minute before the silent public pause for supposed reflection begins. During the pause, the parties, and in particular individual candidates, will continue to chase perceived lost sheep, using a different, more personal approach to what they have used to date. Such frantic last efforts will not yield many votes, least of all conversions.
By now most people have decided whom they are going to vote for, both in party terms as well as on an individual basis. The decision in party terms will not necessarily be reflected in the desperate polling of opinion by the major parties up to Friday, the eve of E-Day.
The signals coming out already are that each of the big parties believes it has a majority, though there remains some doubt in various worried minds whether it will prove to be enough - that is, an absolute majority.
No matter how many polls are taken, and what feedback there will be from the door-to-door canvassing by individual candidates, the margin of error will remain such as to make any forecast of the outturn rather a rash and perhaps vain effort.
It has been an odd campaign, with much huffing and puffing and raising of heat in the home stretch. Heat will not persuade. Belief will do that on a party basis and personal preferences on an individual basis.
The shouting will continue for a bit more. But the die is cast. There will be no last-minute miracles...