I am writing this as the delegates cast their vote in the second round of voting. They have to choose between George Abela and me. In an hour or so we will know who. It's now totally up to them. Good time to relax and reflect. If they choose Dr Abela, I will, of course, be disappointed but I will do my best to come to terms with reality without any waste of time. He knows that if he wins he can rely on me to take up, with enthusiasm and loyalty, whatever job I am professionally competent at.

Competence. That is something I take very seriously. Being a politician - whatever that means - should be no excuse for incompetence. The idea that it is all right for a politician to be a jack of all trades and a master of none is just not on. Not any more at least.

Not in an epoch when the technical aspects of a country's problems are so complex that only persons technically competent in the specific problems concerned can really come to grips with them.

This does not mean that democratically-elected representatives of the people should henceforth abdicate their responsibilities to non-elected technocrats. That would certainly be a step backwards. The responsibility for critical decisions that affect the livelihood and the quality of life of a country's citizens must be taken by persons that are ultimately accountable to the citizens that elected them. What are the implications of this?

Firstly, although elected representatives will need to continue to bear ultimate political responsibility for their choices, they will increasingly need to rely on the best possible technical advice they can get.

Secondly, we need to attract more talented and more competent women and men to the practice of representative politics. A minister can have all the most expensive consultants in the world but s/he will still need to understand their advice and will still need to distinguish between the real expert and the quack.

As showmanship gradually gives way to other forms of persuasion, people are becoming more concerned with the contents of what candidates, MPs, ministers and prime ministers have to say rather than with how they say it. We will be increasingly judged by the content of our statements. Ultimately, however, we will be judged by our deliverables. Less and less voters will be impressed by oratory. They will ask awkward questions and will expect facts not words as a reply to those questions.

You don't want to hear fancy speeches about the importance of education and human resource development in the era of advanced information and communications technology; you want to know why we are still lagging miserably behind the rest of Europe in the general level of our education.

You also want to know what we are going to do about it and how we are going to go about it. You also want to know if what we are spending on solving (you hope) the problem is being well spent. You would want to know what value you're getting for your money.

It's 10 p.m. One hour ago the ballot boxes were sealed, sealing the fate of the Labour Party and my own personal fate. I disagree with some of my friends who were annoyed at the (true, often invasive and not always fair) interest shown by the "other" side and by the media in "our" business.

The choice of a new leader for the Labour Party is no less a matter of national importance than the choice of a new leader for the Nationalist Party.

After all we only have two large mass-parties and, for better or for worse, we have so far only two parties represented in Parliament. We are more often than not at each others' throat but we must both concede that we are two great political parties with a mass-mobilising capability that is - relative to our size - practically unequalled in Europe. Within this perspective, the choice of leaders is a national issue and, therefore, the sealing of those ballot boxes seals everybody's future.

What makes a delegate come to the Labour National Centre two evenings in a row to vote for a new leader? To vote for a new leader, stupid, I can hear you say. That, however, begs another question. In an epoch when people, disillusioned by traditional politics, are increasingly indifferent to what politicians say and are seeking refuge in their own personal shell, what makes 900 or so women and men go out of their way in their precious free time to make a political statement: I want so-and-so as leader? If they have chosen me, it can only be because they have had enough of this long winter of our discontent. They ache for a new season.

Dr Muscat is the new leader of the Labour Party.

www.josephmuscat.com