Lost in Flemish translations

I do not like what I see happening in Malta, no sir, not at all. These forthcoming EU elections are bringing out the worst in us. Not that previous elections have not done likewise. It seems, however, that this time round the battle strategy between the Nationalist Party (PN) and the Labour Party (PL) is based solely on rubbishing the other party in the bitchiest way possible, which in my book is not conducive to positive thinking.

The Maltese electorate is sick and tired of having to vote for either one party or the other because the alternative is so dire. All this twaddle about how badly the representatives of one party or the other performed and what buttons they pressed or did not press is irrelevant to the man in the street who couldn't give a tinker's toss about the number of plenary sessions attended by Mr X or Dr Y unless it translates from Flemish as the difference between bringing home the bacon or not.

The man in the street remains largely perplexed as to how having five or six MEPs in Brussels affects his quality of life when something that concerns and worries him, like having an urgent EU summit to discuss illegal immigration, is unceremoniously shot down by Josè Manuel Barroso. Likewise, it has little or no bearing about how one is to pay estimated energy bills.

I am perplexed myself. But then, I am merely an artist and am not supposed to understand these things, am I? Like you, I am faced with a motley crew of ladies and gentlemen, many of whom I do not know from a bar of soap despite their filling my letterbox with junk mail every day.

All of them promise to work in my interest and earnestly urge me to make them my representative in Brussels which is odd, coming to think of it, when I am having such a hard time trying to convince my local parliamentary representatives that I actually exist. Hello!

Freethinkers like myself, wannabe natural floating voters, are frowned upon by both political leviathans because they are unable to obtain what they thrive on, which is blind loyalty of the kind that enables a Maltese born and bred to wear Manchester United or Juventus colours and cheer these "foreign" teams when they are playing against a Maltese team on our own national stadium! Ideally, I would be neither PN nor PL but, please, I am Maltese!

With this kind of warped mentality so prevalent among us it is hardly surprising that these EP elections are based solely on which party manages to elect the majority of candidates irrespective of who they are, what they have done and what they promise to do.

Out of the five MEPs who have commuted to Brussels in the past four years as our national representatives, only Simon Busuttil has really shone. It is as if, like Padre Pio, he has the gift of bilocation. He is everywhere. If anyone made up for the PN deficit in candidates it was he.

With Joseph Muscat now out of the running we have the choice of re-electing John Attard Montalto, David Casa or Louis Grech. My preference will always go to a tried and proven technocrat like Mr Grech, an eminently successful ex chairman of Air Malta who is running for re-election under the PL banner.

I also, for the same reasons, approve of Marlene Mizzi who, in her time, was also a very successful chairman of Sea Malta under a PN Administration till Minister Austin Gatt thought otherwise.

Alan Deidun is also a favourite as he is to the environment what David Attenborough is to the natural world.

I am still puzzled by the two PN candidates who appear to have diametrically opposed views about hunting. One of them is related by blood to the FKNK public relations officer and is the federation's legal representative and the other also is pro-divorce within a party that is blocking its introduction to Malta at every turn. Sharon Ellul Bonici is the most baffling of the lot as the party banner she is contesting under is anything but Eurosceptic.

Despite the dreary Greek chorus about our local political polarisation, the EU, as I predicted, has been anything but a deus ex macchina.

Five years on we are still lost in demonising each other without anything valid in the way of social reform and cultural cross-fertilisation to show for it. Because the government, after being in power for so long, is going into this election with the dice heavily weighted against it. Just think of those crazily estimated bills hitting our home budgets like that crane that toppled over in St Julians last week; it is very likely that there may even be PN diehards who will use this election to register a protest vote.

Believe me, it makes no difference whatsoever as the pundits at the top of the tree are impervious to any well meant advice, criticism or protest of any sort but will carry on regardless even if it means that there are over 2,000 people waiting for a place to bury their loved ones, yet another unfulfilled promise that has not booked a seat on the EU gravy train but one with far more serious consequences than even those elusive five energy saving bulbs.

kzt@onvol.net