Joe Muscat has a huge task before him. He calls it an earthquake: making the MLP eligible. Healing the wounds of the recent internal contests will keep him busy over the next few months. Happily for him it is all power politics in Malta. Ideology, which would make divisions permanent, is all but an irrelevance.

To bring his team together he must display an intolerance for everything and anything that reduces the chances of eventual victory while holding out the prospect of office for those with ambition.

Labour grassroots are already compact in his support. He is the new leader and he has no need for any MuscatMLP campaign to become the mystical papier maché idol in our political festa. He is well aware that it is not enough.

Long before the issue is decided in the election itself, he must make it a given that Labour will win next time around.

The can-we-ever-make-it doubts afflicting Labour must be passed on to the Nationalists who must be made to resign themselves to a stint in opposition. The danger of complacency allowing the extravagance of internal division on the eve of an election will always be there but after Labour's recent experience, it would take nothing less than diabolical persistence to go there again.

Whether the MLP wins or loses in 2013 will be determined in the next several months through the success or otherwise of Joe Muscat's earthquake. It will not be worth the trouble if its results are not indelibly registered in the consciousness of those outside the party. Alfred Sant's reform ousting the violent elements from the party was embraced as dogma by the party faithful but left more than enough space for doubt in those outside it.

Joe Muscat has to do more. His youth gives him the valuable advantage of innocence at the time of Labour's grim past and he has every right to speak for Labourites who never endorsed violence and corruption, who refuse to bear the taint. He can also speak for those whose worst crime is party loyalty, those who turned a blind eye to sleaze and oppression and took on the burden of responsibility for all sorts of faults and failings. He can speak to Nationalists about that these days and they will understand perfectly. They know all about voting for a party they despise to keep out the adversaries they dread.

Building the future is another matter. Projecting Labour as a viable alternative to the present Nationalist government is principally a matter of avoiding mistakes. No matter what Labour does and even if it does nothing, the dominance of the media by the PN will allow it to inflate every wart to pumpkin dimensions. It does not help to provide one's adversaries with imperfections of all kinds most of the time. The basic rule is zero tolerance of PR blunders. Better do nothing than make a mistake.

Still, an alternative government cannot rely solely on the attrition of the present administration's acts and omissions. It must communicate an attractive, realistic and innovative vision.

I-want-to-be-the-government is simply not enough. In every sector the MLP's proposals have to be seen to be workable, economical and if possible cutting edge.

PR is crucial but this also needs substance. Even the most distracted must be able to sense that behind the flash and spectacle there is a weight of competence and expertise. Joe Muscat cannot pull this out of a hat.

The election of Alex Sceberras Trigona to the post of International Secretary of the party is being talked of as a liability for the new leader, because of the association with a distant past. I think that it is the least of his worries.

The big issue for Joe Muscat is party finance. Without money, his earthquake will leave the MLP a heap of rubble. With money from the real powers that be in the country he can provide as good a show as the PN but his government will be as warped as theirs, in many sectors no government at all.

Lawrence Gonzi has promised reform and Joe Muscat should push him in the same direction making epochal gains for democracy and good governance in this country.

After that earthquake everything changes, not only the MLP.

Until that happens, I will continue to vote Green and only Green.

It feels daft voting either PN or MLP in any way as long as they are financed by the people wrecking the country and putting all the spanners in all the works. When it happens, the landscape changes for Greens also.

Dr Vassallo is former chairman of Alternattiva Demokratika - the Green Party.

hcvassallo@kemmunet.net.mt

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