A campaign to forget

On Thursday afternoon, a woman called in on a NET TV programme featuring Simon Busuttil and told viewers not to make the same mistake she had the year before. She had abstained in the general election and regretted it. Actually she said that she nearly died and had to call in the doctor until the results were announced.

Another caller went one better in the melodrama stakes. She appealed to viewers to recite the rosary in the hope of a Nationalist victory at the polls. The woman clearly had not thought of the possibility that there might be equally fervent Labour supporters praying for a different result. As she rang off, I got to thinking about the causes of the air of despondency in the Nationalist camp.

Barring any surprise results from the time of writing to E-day and from the surveys at hand, it seems to be a foregone conclusion that the PN will not fare very well at the polls. And although some of the reasons for this may be well beyond the party's control, it has sown many of the seeds of its own defeat.

Nationalist die-hards may rant about Joseph Muscat's dragging local issues to centre-stage or for urging people to make theirs a protest vote against the government. They do have a point in that the PL has largely ignored the European dimension of the election.

However, the EP election is viewed as an opportunity to give the national government a bloody nose by other countries all across the EU, so it's not a trait which is peculiar to us. Look at what's happening in Britain. Voters who are totally disenchanted with Gordon Brown's government are tripping over themselves to vote for other parties. They've hardly breathed a word about the European Parliament; it's all about voters getting an opportunity to show the government just how much they resent it. A part of the Maltese electorate may be doing the same, in an election where the seat of power is not at stake.

However, the PN's inability to get its campaign off the ground is attributable to factors other than the protest vote. First, there was the party's insistence about harping on the Labour Party's opposition to EU membership in the past. Presumably, this was intended to highlight the distinctions between the PN's pro-EU credentials and Labour's eurosceptic background. The inclusion of candidates such as Sharon Ellul Bonici - who claims she is a "Euro-realist" - may have served to accentuate this difference between the parties, but the issue of Labour's allegedly reluctant attitude towards the EU did not stir up passions as it did five years ago. It may be hard for the Nationalist Party to accept, but the electorate has moved on, and is simply not interested in what happened in 2004.

Another strategic mistake for the PN was to adopt a negative and disparaging tone early on in the campaign, initially with their 'Labour tree' billboard and then with the print ads depicting Labour MEP candidates as embarrassing and infra dig - basically people the chattering classes would shun.

The problem with this approach is that it just didn't resonate with readers. People couldn't really envisage candidates such as Louis Grech, Edward Scicluna or Marlene Mizzi committing social faux-pas or acting like badly-mannered oiks. The ad designers may have ignored the fact that not everyone shares their deeply partisan view of society and that not everyone dislikes opposition candidates as much as they do.

The biggest damp squib in the PN's unimpressive arsenal was the revelation that the Leader of the Opposition, his wife, and a host of other Labour personalities, were among the plaintiffs in the court case claiming a refund of the VAT paid on the cars. This was revealed with much fanfare by the PN, but was greeted with a resounding "So what?" from the general public.

Again, the PN had misjudged the public mood. People were not buying into the idea that there was anything unethical about claiming money which had been overpaid, even if Labour politicians were doing it. They figured that if tax had been levied unjustly, it should be refunded. Again - this proved to be a non-issue for the PN. Combined with the clashing candidates' policies, misleading statements about the problem of illegal immigration and election-fatigue, these misjudgements served to make this PN campaign one of the most lacklustre ever.

Over on the PL side, the one campaign which proved that money can't buy you love or a great copy-writer was that of Sharon Ellul Bonici.

Her campaign clearly had a lavish budget but the print ads were wordy and failed to convey any particular message efficiently. She even had to publish an ad to explain a previous ad - which shows how hopelessly ineffectual the first was. Then on the last day of the electoral campaign we found a full-page picture of Sharon in sports gear holding a rugby ball in one hand and a football in the other, telling us to get ready for action and with the inexplicable title 'Some Mothers Do 'Ave Them'.

I cast my mind back to some of the lighter moments of the campaign - Norman Lowell's balloons tied to the phallic monument in Lija, Alan Deidun's flag-waving stunt, our very own circumcision warrior, Sharon holding up those balls... and I have to agree that some mothers do have them.

cl.bon@nextgen.net.mt