In the 1996 general election campaign the main electoral issue was VAT. In 1998 it was taxes, financial mismanagement and unemployment. Clearly, in 2003 it was the EU question. But the one held on March 8, 2008 will probably go down in the history books as the election without a significant tangible issue at stake. The health and education sectors were visibly improved, tourism had reached all-time records, unemployment was at a new low and, this time, truly, the country's coffers were in good shape.
Given this clear state of affairs, the Malta Labour Party had no choice other than to shift the attention away from issues and focus on the politicians and the style of politics. Their slogan of New Beginning and the repeated claim of the country needing change tried to convince the electorate that the Nationalist Party was a party riddled with corruption and mismanagement and had gone stale whereas the MLP could offer something new and different.
This strategy was attacked cleverly by the PN, arguing that change for the sake of it did not make sense. This is where the playing on the people's psyche really took off. Opinion polls consistently showed that the majority of those surveyed wished to have the MLP in government but when asked whom they wanted as Prime Minister, Lawrence Gonzi was significantly, and consistently, more popular than Alfred Sant. The PN campaign team exploited this superbly with the brand gonzipn.
It has often been argued that the PN's biggest asset was Dr Sant and, to a certain degree, that has held true. But once the campaign kicked in, something interesting occurred. Dr Gonzi rapidly shifted from being Prime Minister to statesman. It was during the campaign that he finally came out of the shadow of his predecessor and really into his own, taking the mantle as leader of the nation in a manner which the MLP found difficult, indeed impossible, to reverse. The PN ads in the English-language media supported this. They had one central theme throughout: You can trust Dr Gonzi whereas you can't trust Dr Sant. This was supported by the message that "You cannot put a price on peace of mind".
This is where the MLP failed miserably. After 20 years in opposition they should have been dictating the campaign, coming across as dynamic, energetic, clear and positive. Instead, their campaign seemed very slow to kick off. The bland-looking vertical containers with the use of stock photos, the "misprints" in the manifesto, the early absence of adverts in the English media, all played nicely into the PN's hands. The MLP's earlier claim that they were ready to hit the ground running started to look somewhat false.
In what is commonly known as negative campaigning, the PN reinforced the message that Dr Sant was simply not to be trusted whereas Dr Gonzi was.
The PN also started to find chinks in the MLP manifesto and campaign and began to introduce fear and doubt. These two emotions work a treat in Malta, being an island with a highly insular mentality. By raising fears that the MLP would renegotiate the EU Accession Treaty, the PN reintroduced that feeling of uncertainty. Malta is still very cautious and wary of anything new, so change is rarely welcomed with open arms. The MLP had to do a really good job to persuade people to change allegiance and it simply did not manage.
It got even harder for the MLP when the now-famous "reception" class was superbly referred to by the PN as a "repeater" class. Once again, the arguments were not mainly on the educational merits or otherwise of the year being proposed but on the psychological use of the word "repeater", a word that simply means failure. The PN hijacked the argument completely and it became a noose around the MLP's campaign neck as they tried in vain to explain it. It was a case of "when in a hole, stop digging", as their claim that some schools in Malta already had this reception year boomeranged in no uncertain manner. Of course, these inconsistencies in the Labour camp were further fodder for the PN to drive the point home that the MLP were incompetent at best and irresponsible at worst.
The PN's focus on trust was managed in a number of ways.
Dr Sant was clearly uncomfortable with the media, at times simply ignoring questions put to him. He seemed ill at ease in public and even during his short visits on his lightning stops around Malta he came across as too wooden. His smile never convinced and it had a patronising feel about it which many people find most disconcerting.
Dr Gonzi, on the other hand, comes across as one of the most affable and approachable persons you can ever meet, and his enthusiasm is infectious.
By highlighting the personality differences between the two leaders, the PN was constantly projecting the message that the issue in this election was one of trust. Far from being stale and lacking ideas, the PN was convincing more voters that it was the party with vision and that really believed in the Maltese.
A large part of the MLP campaign focused on raising doubts on the integrity of the then PN ministers and, later on, even of the new candidates. To a certain degree this worked as it appealed to the somewhat contradictory value system we tend to adopt whereby we are shocked and scandalised by other people's flaws but somewhat lenient on our own. But there was an element of overkill and the constant attacking of one minister after another started to lose effect. It became a political equivalent of what in economics is known as the law of diminishing returns. In other words, the first "scandal" will have a significant effect but the subsequent ones will start reducing in terms of the impact they have, especially if they are not significantly substantiated.
Ironically, the trump card that could have worked for the MLP was left for far too late and the killer-blow effect it was hoped to have never happened.
The campaign had other twists and turns, but on reflection it was clear that the PN recognised before the campaign started that by pushing gonzipn, with all its implications, it had a threefold desirable effect: Dr Gonzi was clearly the PN's major asset, so all focus was on him; by so doing it showed Dr Sant for who he was and it took away the spotlight from the rest of the PN.
The MLP tried its utmost to reverse this situation but, although it occasionally threatened to take the initiative in the campaign, it probably was just a few days short of turning things around.
The MLP's legacy in this campaign in terms of the PN is that it has pushed the electorate to vote for new blood. The new Cabinet and parliamentary secretaries should, ironically, express some of their gratitude to the MLP for the damage it caused to previously-senior members of the PN Cabinet.
In the absence of clear-cut major issues, the campaign became a battleground for parties to tap in to people's emotions. The electorate is no longer solely interested in what is done in politics but, more so, how it is done. Values such as integrity, transparency and accountability are now common parlance in the local political world. We may be edging closer to the day when the culture of political accountability with potential resignations will not be something alien to Malta. In that respect, the MLP has played a significant part.
As for Dr Gonzi, people have made it clear that they trust him. Trust, however, takes ages to build and only a second to lose. As a result, his personal and political responsibility is probably greater than any of his predecessors'. That said, his first few days in office augur well. Dr Gonzi's freezing of Mepa's decision-making process, his choice of Cabinet and parliamentary secretaries and, more relevantly, those whom he left out, is the start his party and the country needs. It is clear that the electorate has heightened its expectations of politicians' work ethic, and that can only be positive for the country.
Mr Refalo is a psychotherapist in private practice.