I have come to hate the Nationalist Party in the same way and with the same intensity that a 40-, 50- or 60-something-year-old comes to hate her menopausal husband who leaves her for another woman. And not necessarily a Russian or a bimbo either. Any other woman will do.

The man who was once painfully shy, powerless, destitute and going nowhere. The man she virtually discovered, believed in and quite literally transformed into the person he is today. With whom she had three or five children and suffered all the joys that come with that bleak, sacrificial, unglamorous, unromantic, mundane mind-numbing time in one’s life – sleepless nights, nappy changes, wipes, throw-up and anonymity.

At a time when money was scarce and times were hard. The man she basically adored and loved unconditionally. The man who was her husband.

Today, he’s smug, a little bloated and self-satisfied. He’s arrogant and cocky and drives a personalised sports utility vehicle when he’s not driving a convertible, which bear his and his girlfriend’s initials, which they shove down your and everybody else’s throat, with reckless abandon.

If you momentarily allow yourself to forget the betrayal, the back stabbing, the hypocrisy, the lies, the cheating and try to recall the good old days, when he needed you more than you needed him, privately you may acknowledge that he is the only man you have ever really loved.

But publicly, you’ll also admit, that it’s too far gone. The damage has been done. Even if he came back with his tail between his legs, apologised profusely, begged forgiveness and asked you to take him back, things could never be the same.

While we were never the sort of family that traded in blind adoration or infatuation, and while we would never throw ourselves hopelessly at or fall over any political party while engaging in nauseating all-inclusive plurals in a way which suggested a sense of belonging to one big political happy family, I definitely do remember my mother’s bottomless, political energy in the 1980s.

She bought all the cassettes there were to buy and played them all day long. We learned all the lyrics to all of Hector Bruno’s upbeat songs which I can still sing by rote. We tied Nationalist Party flags around our necks or wore them as scarves and bandannas around our head. We lost our voices and our minds.

In those days they needed us more than we needed them and we were there. We were everywhere – in every square, at every meeting, come rain or shine, promising our unwavering support and loyalty. We lived and breathed only to see them in power and we were all dying for it to happen.

And finally, it did. I remember those days vividly. I remember chanting mantras about work, justice and freedom. More than that, I remember that desperate feeling that comes from wanting something so badly, you almost feel that for that reason alone it might not happen. I still remember being 12 or 13 and thinking ‘If the Nationalists don’t make it this time, I think I might die’.

Today, I think I might die if the Nationalists wind up winning the next election. I’m so sick of the smugness, the hypocrisy, the sanctimony. I’m so fed up of the way they always seem to win, even when they clearly have no business doing so. It’s like watching a very drawn out, one-sided, Manchester United game well into extra time.

And I’m not just talking about winning elections here. It goes way beyond that. It’s about the way they’ve manipulated the media. It’s about the inevitable corruption that results from having been there far too long.

They may have struggled to get into power, but boy have they made up for it. And like the ex-husband you no longer recognise, who has become a virtual stranger, you sometimes need to pinch yourself and wonder whether it was all a dream.

Now, the one thing a wife who finds herself in this predicament wants, is a worthy and formidable opponent – a man who is even better than her husband. Not only does the opposition or substitute need to privately sweep her off her feet, he also preferably needs to be a trophy sort of appendage other men are jealous of, who will make the ex rue the error of his ways.

Trust me, there is nothing any woman would want more. It’s high on life’s top five seminal moments – to walk into the same room as your ex, looking stunning and perfect in a little black dress, panty hose and killer high heels, on the arm of a tall, dark and handsome man who is every bit more of a man your husband ever was, and then some.

Which brings me to the opposition. Like the proverbial knight in shining armour, I keep hoping that the Labour Party will step up, take charge, sweep me off my feet and come to their senses and to the rescue. But they keep getting it horribly wrong.

They still have not gotten their act together and we’re only two years away from the election. We’re all tired of this government. Even the government is tired of the government – Austin Gatt certainly is.

The next election belongs to Labour, but, unfortunately at the rate they are going, it’s going to be theirs to lose. Individually there are many decent, reasonable Labour acolytes who make a lot of sense and who may well do a good job, but put them all together in the same room, give them a pedestal and a microphone and they suddenly all sound deranged and unhinged. And the very worst part, of course, is that they actually make the menopausal, balding ex-husband look palatable.

There are people who argue that, at this point, nothing could be worse. That any change is good, that a new broom sweeps clean. And that may be true. But I personally think either way, we’ve had it.

michelaspiteri@gmail.com