Joseph sold by his brothers

I confess that I was actually taken in. Although I felt that George Abela would have been my own choice for leader of the MLP, the delegates, God bless them and all who sail in them, chose Joseph Muscat. Albeit a foregone conclusion, young Dr Muscat, the moment he was elected embarked on a reconciliatory campaign that was designed to appeal to all and sundry, whether Labour or Nationalist, even going as far as to appeal to what is an abhorrent taboo for both parties, that recalcitrant being called a floater.

"Aaaaaha," I thought, "This boy must have a brain." And with that I started imagining all sorts of refreshing breezes of change and reform sweeping through Malta in Zapatero-like fashion. In those first few days the more Young Joseph spoke the more I felt that, contrary to popular belief, the MLP delegates are not as off their trolley as all that. I went as far as imagining that with a young man with vision, enthusiasm and, above all, an open mind, the 2013 election would guarantee true democracy in Malta after years and years of governments elected by default; parties remaining in power in aeternum because the alternative is simply too dire to contemplate.

I genuinely thought that Dr Muscat had grasped the idea that elections can only be won when the floaters decide that one party offers a better package than the other. In the last election it was either more of the same with some variations or a vague plan to formulate yet another plan for a new beginning that nobody really wanted; a selling point of dubious efficaciousness with the MLP. The choice was irritatingly obvious and, although the margin of victory was minimal, what really happened in March was, according to the infamous report, a total horlicks on the part of the MLP and an incredible though Pyrrhic victory for the PN.

For just under a week since Dr Muscat's election, I really thought that the MLP delegates had finally bothered to read the report that spelled out the reasons why the MLP lost the election and to assimilate the advice of people like Alfred Mifsud, Lino Spiteri and other columnists who are not of the same political persuasion and who, for democracy's sake, wish to have an opposition worthy of the name and one that presents a viable alternative to the dangerous precedent of Malta becoming a one-party state!

Well, my optimism was short- lived. True to their quixotic reputation, the delegates showed Malta that there is no end to the MLP's utter folly; a party that has long fallen from grace both ideologically and organisationally.

Anġlu Farrugia and Toni Abela, despite the face-saving press releases to the contrary, will prove to be two millstones around Dr Muscat's neck; millstones that have already negated the credibility he gained in his short week of triumph.

At present no floater will buy anything the MLP says or does as long as it is led by a triumvirate of this weird and unwonderful composition. Whatever the MLP thought it had gained by electing Dr Muscat has now been chucked into a landfill. What is even more galling but all the same inexplicable is that there were candidates who were eminently more suitable and plenty of them. It is as if the MLP has a death wish.

Dr Muscat's enjoyment of his political technicolour dreamcoat was as short-lived as that in the Lloyd Webber opera. He has been sold by his brothers. Whether or not he will one day become as powerful as the real Joseph in the Bible remains to be seen but so many things have still to happen to poor Dr Muscat till it does; divinations, interpretations of dreams, years of plenty, years of famine and goodness knows what else; far too much to fit into four short years till the election campaign for 2013 kicks off.

Unless a miracle happens all we will get next time round is more and more of the same; something that to anyone who believes in true democracy is nothing short of an abomination. And whose fault is it?