A basic question should be exercising those who wish the Malta Labour Party well: What should the party do to stand a reasonable chance of winning the next general election, having lost the last three on the trot? The beginning of the answer should be the reply to yet another question: Why did the MLP lose the March 2008 general election and the two before it, after having won that of 1996 handsomely. That reply begs to shout itself hoarse.
The MLP won in 1996 because it had a new leadership of three men complementing each other in qualities. They persuaded a majority of over 8,000 that Labour was more suited to run the country than the PN. The threesome broke up in 1998, when George Abela did not agree an election should be held just then as the leader, Alfred Sant, wanted.
The election was held. The MLP saw its 8,000-plus majority evaporate after just 22 months. An astonishing majority of over 12,000 rose up for a Nationalist Party not yet cleansed of the dust and dirt accrued in its 1987-96 years of government. Sant did not admit he had erred in his calculation, nor offer an explanation for such a massive swing against him. Showing no regret, he stayed on.In 2003 a referendum on EU membership was held. As was its right the MLP militated for a negative vote. The 'Yes' call was approved by the vast majority of those who voted. Sant infamously declared Labour had won the referendum. Then Prime Minister Eddie Fenech Adami immediately called an election. Sant-driven Labour could have said that, once the people had given a democratic 'yes' to membership, it accepted that decision. Instead an intransigent Sant led the fiercest attacks ever on membership. The MLP failed to persuade a majority to vote for it. Even committed Labourites moved in droves to vote to consolidate the pro-membership referendum expression.
The defeated Sant, proved wrong for a second time in succession, did the decent thing and resigned. Others prepared to contest to succeed him. Then he inexplicably changed his mind, contested to stay on as leader and, with the power of incumbency also in his favour, won the day, even as the strongest of his potential challengers, Evarist Bartolo, stayed away out respect for him, a decision he recently declared he regretted.
Between 2003 and 2008 the Nationalist government took Malta into the EU and the eurozone. It also grew tired and worse. Defeating it at March's general election should have been easy, even had the MLP been led by the man on the other side of the moon. Led by Sant, it failed once more to persuade a democratic majority to vote for it. That it lost only marginally was thanks to thousands of Nationalists who demonstrated anger at their party by staying away or spoiling the vote. The Sant-led MLP failed to penetrate among new and floating voters, or even to muster the full Labour grassroots force.
This time Sant resigned, "irrevocably". Again he showed no regret. Nor did he concede that Labour led by him lost yet again because there was something wrong with its policies, organisation and style.
Placed by the cunning Nationalists as temporary leader of the opposition, he proceeded to fly in the face of reality one more time. Replying to the President's Speech on Monday, Sant spoke as if he had not been defeated again in the March general election. He regurgitated his pre-election words. He looked forward only twice.
To warn the government not to take the opposition for granted, as it definitely ought not to. And to script the outline of a new mystery. As reported in The Times (May 13), Sant warned that democracy was facing a new threat: a clique which was not in the forefront of the political scene had the power to take decision in their own interest.
After targeting the PN, he turned on the MLP. The same clique, he opined, would try to take over the Labour Party and colonise it. The warning was meant to frighten by vague suggestion. Sant, if only to partly atone for having led the MLP into three defeats which it might have avoided, would have been expected to be explicit, to expose the dastardly clique of would-be colonialists. He did nothing of the sort. He also continued to ignore the analysis that others from within the party are making openly on why Labour lost.
Coincidentally, one reason was again bared in the same issue of The Times by Evarist Bartolo, now finally vying for the leader's position.
As party leader, he said, he would go from door to door to speak to every person who, for some reason or another, no longer voted for the MLP. During his meeting with party delegates - he continued - he was informed that 300 MLP supporters in Cospicua, 200 in Żebbuġ, another 300 in Birkirkara and 300 more in Qormi, "just to mention a few", did not vote for the MLP.
Translated that means MLP delegates know Sant-led Labour failed to persuade supporters in strongholds like Cospicua, Żebbuġ and Qormi, and in Birkirkara, Sant's own constituency. The question 'Why?!' again yells itself hoarse at the MLP. Unless Labour arrives at the right answers, it will not be on track to determine what it should do to stand a reasonable chance of winning the next general election, after having lost the last three without break.