If Saturday’s were a general election, the Labour Party would have had a landslide victory. Some could also argue that Lawrence Gonzi’s admission of failing to remain close to the people has not had much success, at least, so far.
But the people did not vote for the party they want to govern the country. Nor did they go to the polls to choose their representatives who, through what they decide in Parliament, affect their daily lives.
Still, both those who braved the inclement weather to vote for their local council and the others who abstained evidently wanted to make a statement. They used a local event to draw attention to a national issue. And both leaders of the two main political parties accept there are messages they must interpret and act upon. What they will in fact do has still to be seen.
Dr Gonzi said he saw it coming and that was the whole aim of the address he made a fortnight ago soon after he was overwhelmingly confirmed as leader by the Nationalist Party’s general council.
The strong message that emerged from the local elections result was that a lot of work still had to be done at various levels, especially among families, he noted.
Labour leader Joseph Muscat could hardly be blamed for expressing satisfaction. After all, councillors running on the PL ticket did win 56 per cent of the vote against the PN’s 42 per cent. Yet, he was careful not to appear to be jubilant, even admitting that, yes, the PL did have a habit of winning local council elections but then losing where it really matters, at general elections.
So what happens now?
Both parties were already in electoral mode. This latest test of their popularity, beyond the surveys they themselves commission or those conducted by the media and other interested quarters, will, of course, be taken into consideration as they fine-tune their strategies for the campaign leading to the next general election, whenever that will happen.
Dr Muscat said he would be instructing elected PL councillors to continue visiting families, to keep in touch with them, to convince them that Labour is always there for them and not only when an election is nearing.
Dr Gonzi had already done that when he appointed MEP Simon Busuttil as his “special delegate” to organise meetings between all strata of society and the Prime Minister. Again, he promised that his party would keep close to the people and acknowledged that the electorate was telling mayors, councillors and politicians too that they should stop being arrogant and instead start listening to what the people had to say.
Both leaders of course know that voters use local council elections to send messages to the parties they support. They also know that electors who refuse to collect their voting document or stay away from the polling booth in local elections would not necessarily do so in a general election. Indeed, the big bulk of them do not.
Yet, this weekend’s results must be worrying for both parties in different degrees and for different reasons. The PL could have indeed expected to be able to report better results in some of the localities. The PN continues to realise that if you reap the wind you sow the whirlwind.
Each party must, with hand on heart, now read the message/s their supporters are sending them. It would be wise for them not to discard anything, not even the possibility that voters might feel they are caught between a stone and a hard place.