Rebels with a cause

Ipresume that by this time the Prime Minister and his advisors have picked up their jaws from the floor. Let's now have a look at what is Lawrence Gonzi's best excuse for the Nationalist Party's defeat at the EP polls. The party in government always has more to lose especially during an international recession. It doesn't seem though that this bad result was part of a pan-European revolt against right-wing governments caused by the global economic downturn. Electoral support was given to other incumbents in the same, and worse, predicaments. One only has to look at the results obtained by Silvio Berlusconi in Italy, Nicolas Sarkozy in France, Angela Merkel in Germany and Donald Tusk in Poland. The Maltese government has proved to be an exception among European governments on the right of the political spectrum.

Among the survivors, one can observe, though, that in spite of the general sweep to the right, Mr Sarkozy and Ms Merkel, for instance, did well by taking a leaf from social democracy by taking radical action vis-à-vis the banks and offering higher social protection and more state intervention where necessary. Both must feel vindicated in their approach to the international economic crisis, especially with regard to the introduction of tougher financial regulation. Ironically, in the UK, Labour's Gordon Brown, like Dr Gonzi here, seems to have overlooked, or maybe ignored, the mood and taxed people further. In our case we got water and electricity price hikes.

It seems that the spirit on the continent was not grasped on the two islands. In his article We Need An Earthquake, Martin Jacques points out in The Newstatesman that "Obama has exposed the timidity of Blair and Brown - whose disastrous legacy is a Britain with no strong, credible left-of-centre voice". Here, the PN did not bother to claim positions typically held by the left concerning state intervention. Life went on as though people were not being crushed under the dictatorship of the market. Surely, being saddled with some members of the Cabinet the Prime Minister was constrained to choose last year did not help matters.

During the 2008 general election campaign, Dr Gonzi told us that he had given his ministers their notice. After the election there were redundancies. There is one school of thought which concurs with the idea that the most clear symptom of the sickness was when Dr Gonzi chose some ministers because of their malleability rather than their talent. This is when one can be sure a party is in trouble. What will the Prime Minister say now? That his "new" team is on probation? The PN's modus operandi of late has been to flail around and then do nothing.

Will this collective lethargy seal the fate of the PN? As one former PN supporter put it: "There's no way back, the party's over." Is it? I suppose we'll just have to wait and see whether the PN will defy political gravity. Let's just hope that this government, for however long it continues to last, will be less of a pathetic and sad spectacle, especially for the sake of those citizens who are in a really bad way and had cause to rebel. In the meantime, we while away the time reflecting on how exceptional (as in not conforming to the general rule) we are.

Exception number one. We are the only country in the EU - according to data up to the time of writing - which has not elected at least one woman to the European Parliament even though the first-count votes some of the women candidates garnered were very good.

Exception number two. Malta remains the country with the highest voter turnout compared to other countries where voting is optional. Congratulations to all who continue to make this possible.

Exception number three. In spite of there being only a couple of hundred thousand votes to be counted - compared to the millions of most EU countries - our vote-counting process was the last to come to an end. Do we have to continue being perceived as some backwater? Can we not have a counting system that is not so long and laborious? What's the problem with emulating systems that have been tried, tested and proved more efficient by other countries? When this question is raised, one gets many ifs and buts and the issue continues to be shrouded in mystery and we continue using the abacus while boasting of our IT credentials. It's mind-boggling.

Exception number four. Malta has gone against the European trend and will be sending four MEPs to join the Socialist grouping and two MEPs to join the People's Party. The latter have increased their majority in the rest of Europe whereas the Socialists (excluding Malta and Greece, mainly) have decreased theirs.

Exception number five. The Greens made inroads in the rest of Europe while they fared miserably here. Now it is up to the Labour Party to retool its message to attract those lured away by Alternattiva.

We only followed the rule in one area. Norman Lowell's party has flowed with the European trend whereby far-right parties have made considerable gains.

Dr Dalli is a Labour member of Parliament.