It’s been and gone, the local council election has and, verily, it was revealing. In a major sense, it was a revealing of what, if I were vulgarly inclined, I’d call the “bleedin’ obvious” but such is the sanctimonious shock horror with which robust language is greeted on the hypocritical flank of the country, perhaps the editor might prefer to insert a row of asterisks – when this sees the light of day, you will know which he chose.

That which was patently obvious, in any event, was that the Nationalist Party has lost its position as flavour of the month, with a goodly chunk of the electorate shunning it without batting an eyelid. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to see that one coming, for all the “I told you sos” that are reverberating around, generally issuing from the lips of those who just can’t live without seeing themselves in the news.

So it’s pretty clear that the PN has to take a good hard look at itself and at its policies, grab a few minutes to lick its wounds, and deep they are too, and regroup sharply because, on the evidence of this and the polls, there’s a shed-load of work to be done if they’re going to make a decent showing at the general election. And anyone who doesn’t think so should consider his or her position within the party as of now and not carp at those who have laid it on the line.

A better analyst of the situation than I, namely a certain Lawrence Gonzi, PM, has put it on the line succinctly: unless the PN shows itself to be a party that has genuinely grasped the idea that individuals have concerns that need to be addressed, it’s going to be the party that worked a miracle in governing the country but got kicked out anyway.

There are other issues to be addressed but that is the main one.

I have little truck with notions of rejection of oligarchies and suchlike fantasies playing a part in the PN’s failure to attract votes. Voters are pretty comfortable with the idea that they’ve elected people to run the country with trusted advisers. People who spout that sort of thing, frankly, are just parroting the usual mantras of the terminally ambitious, the ones that play along to the tune of “me, me, me and, yet again, me” and who should realise that their time is up.

The little TV coverage I watched after the results were announced confirmed that Labour and its Tiny Elves are right pleased with themselves, as well they should be. They have gained no less than three councils and seen the PN’s share of the vote take a pretty sharp dive. All in all, not a bad weekend’s work, you might say. And say it they did, with a smirk on their faces that was a treat to behold.

Godfrey Grima, for instance, was in his element spinning a tale and a half about how GonziPN would contract yet again, withdrawing into its shell and battening down the hatches in order to ensure that power is clung to and largesse distributed while there’s still a chance. One should, of course, take this man and his dicta with a salt-cellar of the stuff, him being a Brother Grim(a) and all that.

Joseph Muscat should, one would have thought, been ecstatic with the result but on watching his Address To The Nation (caps deliberate), I got the distinct impression that he was less than that. His body language, with his continual fidgeting with his cuffs and slightly stiff stare, was telling, and although his words were gung-ho and up-beat, he seemed to be a touch concerned.

And when you think about it, there’s reason to say that he should be, just a bit. Not to the extent that anyone is going to give his “we are the underdogs” whine any credibility, or his invocation of “the power of incumbency”, but concerned, nonetheless.

For starters, despite his self-proclaimed full-on commitment to the campaign, Labour’s vote only increased by dribs and drabs, for all the weird and wonderful claim that the stay-away vote affected Labour mostly. Are we really supposed to believe that Labour voters stayed away? Come on, pull the other one, it jingles, but the point remains, the electorate was not positively impressed by Dr Muscat and his personal contribution.

Then there’s the way the campaign was fought, for the result that it gave.

In Sliema, for instance, unabashed use of sneak recordings and other underhand tactics resulted in the PN taking a hit but in Labour getting not even a smell of power anyway. When you go the extent of using such low blows and still not manage to score a knockout, then you really have to wonder how transparently desperate you are for power for the electorate to shun you like that.

To be fair, obfuscation of the realities won them St Paul’s Bay, so these tactics do work sometimes, but on the negative side for Labour, putting in a whole new team in Mosta, where their own people had made a pig’s dinner of running the place, simply got them voted out. They must really be running scared that this failure to show good governance capacity and policies isn’t going to spill over into the nation’s psyche when it comes to the real elections.

And to end it all, a recommendation: Murella’s in Marsalforn, where the Calyspo Hotel’s cafeteria used to be. By all accounts, the pizza is superb but we had Saturday lunch and the oven wasn’t fired up – lunch was very good, though, so watch this space for further reports.

imbocca@gmail.com

www.timesofmalta.com/articles/author/20

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