Choices, choices

I suspect I've used this headline before but I've had a rather long lunch at Cockney's in Valletta and the old (and getting older) brain-cells are a bit on the sluggish side.

Unless you've been living on the darker side of Mars or been incarcerated without access to a telly or radio, with the windows closed and the letter-box blocked, you have to know that an election is coming. It's not the most vital of elections, for all that the Labour Party, secure in the knowledge that they're going to have a decent show, are going to make it sound as if the nation has risen up as one to condemn the Nationalists to the outer darkness, but it's important all the same because we're going to elect the five folk (maybe half-a-dozen if the Lisbon thing eventually goes through) who are going to represent us in Brussels.

And Strasbourg.

Some choices are easy. Left out of my list of numbers will be the people who represent parties to whose aims I don't subscribe. By this I don't mean the Labour Party, though I won't, for reasons which it would be insulting to your intelligence to list, be giving them a vote that is likely to mean anything. No, it's the smaller outfits to which I refer, the ones who pander to the baser instincts of the citizenry, the crypto-racists and one-trick donkeys. Thus, the AN, or whatever its current manifestation is, will not be getting a look-in when I take up my pencil, and nor, as if I needed to tell you this, will that Lowell person, even if convicted criminals are actually allowed to contest, as seems to be the case in his regard, unless I've missed something.

To be fair, his conviction is the subject of an appeal to the Constitutional Court, his original appeal against his conviction of spreading racial hatred having been quashed.

The difficulties start when it comes to sorting out the candidates in the party of my choice, the Nationalists. Simon Busuttil has proved to be that which he promised to be, quite simply a most effective and productive representative, not within just the ranks of the Maltese MEPs but even taken in the wider context. He might, but most certainly should not, suffer from the "oh Simon will get voted in by a landslide, so might as well give my vote to someone else" syndrome. It would be an insult, frankly, if you believe that he is the obvious choice not to make him your obvious choice. But where do you go from there? Roberta Metsola Tedesco Triccas and Edward Demicoli, one hears, are showing well in the polls, for much the same reasons: they're young but have very relevant experience and significant drive. David Casa has the advantage of incumbency and exposure while Vincent Farrugia and Frank Portelli are strong niche contenders.

To complicate your life, when you stand in the booth, you've also got the others in the PN list, who I shall mention for the sake of fairness and who all have their own strengths. Marthese Portelli has the Gozitan effect going for her, Alan Deidun should appeal to the environmental lobby, Alex Perici Calascione has a name to muse on and Rudolph Cini appeals to the unions' side of things.

If you think this is a complicated choice to have to make, spare a consideration for those who will go first to the Labour side of the ballot paper. Speaking for myself, if I were in that category, I'd probably go for a mix'n'match of Edward Scicluna, Louis Grech and Marlene Mizzi, though the latter's tendency to flip-flop, as recently shown quite starkly, might make me go for John Attard Montalto, who would, were I to be a Labour voter, have quite a claim on the "for old time's sake" basis.

I don't know much about the rest of them and a few minutes of a political debate last week, before I flipped over to watch (and marvel at) a discussion on one of the minor channels on the usual Eurovision debacle, convinced me that there's not much there to worry anyone, though the speaker I got a few minutes of must have worried the cameraman no end, since he kept bobbing from side to side.

Apparently, the polls are showing that the three I mentioned are making a good fist of it on the Labour side and I'll be watching the result with interest to see if I've hit the spot. I'm not a betting man but they seem to be a safe wager.

The thing is, of course, that one never knows what the Labour machine will grind out when push comes to shove. It's their own internal fight, of course, and far be it from me to comment but when you remember what stunts have been pulled in the past when Labour elects its grandees, you start to wonder what's going to happen next.

Unfortunately, if some stunt is pulled, the result is one that affects us all and not just the party.

imbocca@gmail.com, www.timesofmalta.com/blogs