A recent survey indicated that the possibility of a politician enjoying popularity in the "adversary" camp is not necessarily a rare occurrence.
Such were the results of a survey a few weeks ago making two Nat backbenchers, Franco Debono and Robert Arrigo, popular within the Labour camp. (I do not usually use "Lab" as an abbreviation of Labour, as "Lab politicians" sounds as if I were talking about experimental politics. However, I believe that this abbreviation should become acceptable for the same linguistic logic that "Ħodor", meaning ecologically green, should be an indication of pro-nature and political progressism.)
This popularity survey across the political fence (no pun intended on the blockage by arrogant countryside fences that frustrates Ramblers, you and I) goes as far as making the two politicians above also popular in the opposite party - which is an interesting phenomenon inviting non-impulsive interpretation.
I suppose that most politicians wish to enjoy popularity with "the other side". To be fair, the two Nat politicians above are not the only ones enjoying popularity in the other field. (No reference to leaner shadows of agriculture.) This phenomenon exists with other people in the same party and in the other parties.
Politicians appealing to different colours of voters are what may be called "national politicians" probably unwittingly sending positive signals to different kettles of politically-sensitive fish. But I do not wish to make a variety of references ranging from laboratory politicians to fish-farm voters. I think that it's a good hypothesis to state that every politician wishes to enjoy national sympathy except for those who are furiously introverted, intellectually naïve or sympathisers of hysterically-obsessive writers.
I have had occasion to discover these exceptions while discussing with some politicians exciting themes such as the balance between ministerial intervention and non-intervention, the necessary distinction between personal data protection and professional data non protection and aspects of natural logic and justice.
In the first case I was told that this equilibrium does not exist (sic) as all ministerial intervention is wrong! I proposed the case of ministerial intervention when all other remedies have been exhausted and when injustice is blatant. My simple example seems to have blocked the kind person who looked completely lost and I gave up wasting the time of both of us. As to the last argument, it was grandiloquently hammered into me that natural justice and logic meant his/her own! This is why pig-headed arrogance may exist behind smiling conviction. (I will not semantically dwell on the type of conviction I believe crunch-heads to deserve.)
It is not easy to be a national politician. The point of departure is to believe that people are important and behave accordingly in daily life. Then you need to have good communication skills, avoiding patronising moralism and triumphalism. You need to promote democracy within your party. For example, the choice of a President I happen to like (although I prefer traditional social democracy to conservative social democracy) was apparently a fait accompli announced to the Nat parliamentary group. This is essentially a wrong attitude provoking moaning and disgruntlement - or dreams of horses of Troy. We are not here in the faldetta era when fathers announced to their daughters: "I have found a husband for you and it's for your own good. You accept or go to a convent."
A national politician is also one who objectively recognises worth in adversary political attitude and persons. I have observed this in Nicolas Sarkozy's use in his Administration of a Socialist Minister of Foreign Affairs, Bernard Kouchner, while he also promoted to the presidency of the International Monetary Fund the Socialist Dominique Strauss Kahn, or DSK - as he is known. This is not simple, strategic, political poaching assuring Mr Sarkozy's re-election in 2012, as surveys actually see DSK as President in two years' time.
If a political leader has his close circle where s/he thinks s/he may find the only competent persons in the country, s/he is only practising slow - but sure - political introversion leading to popular hostility and political suicide.
At this stage, and in view of the MEP election post-mortem nagging analysis, the words of the newly-elected PN president Paula Mifsud Bonnici make more sense. Interviewed on November 17, Dr Mifsud Bonnici declared that "the party has to do all it can to find new ways of strengthening its relationship with the man in the street".
This, coupled with what backbenchers have been saying for two years, reminds me of a proverb referring to tongues resting on an aching tooth. This ache has been experienced repeatedly but finds it difficult to go away.
My clever dictionary
Some people, unaware of vast web info, swear by their unique dictionary. Pity, such semantic introversion!
Dr Licari teaches psycholinguistics and sociolinguistics.