Inevitably, the newspapers will risk causing indigestion of politics over the remaining weeks of the electoral campaign. The central theme was long forecast.
The election will also be about who can spring the nastiest surprises at the last moment- Lino Spiteri
It is the Labour Party’s proposal for cheaper energy. It turned out to be better worked out than I, for one, had expected – so much so that part of the Nationalist response to it has verged on the ridiculous.
For instance, the Nationalists suggested that Labour would have to build ships specifically to transport gas to Malta. The simple reply to that is another question: has the Government built ships to bring here the fuel Malta needs for its varied energy consumption?
The surprising thing is that the Nationalists countered Labour’s proposals with evident efforts to create suspicion, forgetting that every question they ask could be asked of them. As for suspicion, that surrounding the BWSC Delimara contract still has not gone away.
It seems clear that Labour’s energy proposal could dominate the electoral campaign. I have my doubts. The real gearing will be the Nationalists’ plan to scaremonger about everything. They will use Labour’s past, its present and, now, it would appear, also its future.
Two can play the same game but Labour, while replying when it must, would be wrong to try to beat the Nationalists at their own sport, though it could do so with a margin to spare.
The election is about the future. It is essentially about management. Who will manage the economy best?
It is also about social conscience. Who will remember the poor and relative poor of Malta? They exist. They are not out of sight. The politicians just don’t look at them enough. The Nationalists failed to look so badly that they even proposed to tax minimum wage earners in the Budget for 2013.
Worse, PN speaker after PN speaker repeats the Prime Minister’s gross lie that the minimum wage was increased by €1,000 since 2008.
That’s a reference to the statutory cost of living increase, which, at best, left minimum wage earners where they were 30 – not four – years ago or in an even worse position in real terms.
The election will also be about who can spring the nastiest surprises at the last moment.
Five years ago, Labour tried that with the land Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando owned at Mistra. Do not bet that the Nationalists are not working on one or two choice morsels of the same type or that Labour are not also ferreting away.
Some might say the election will also be about the new deputy leaders of the big parties. I doubt it. They have made their impact and are being submerged in the overall scheme of things, though snide references are already being made about Louis Grech’s state of health.
In a wider context, more attention will be paid to the quality of the candidates the parties will be presenting.
Attention will also be given to unforeseen factors. For instance, it was no accident that the Prime Minister promised to forgive a substantial government loan to a Muslim school.
I am told there are hundreds, if not thousands, registered Muslim voters in Malta. They tend to support the PL and Lawrence Gonzi has been advised to make a pitch for them. The way they vote could decide the election.
A lot of political flotsam and jetsam has still to surface and surface it will, especially with ferocious attacks on the two leaders and actions or people linked to them.
So far in the first week there has been, at least, one piece of good news. The general secretary of the Nationalist Party and the PL president have signed an agreement to urge their parties’ supporters to behave during the election campaign. That is sensible. Supporters should concentrate on helping their party, not picking fights.
That said, the two party officials should tell their bosses to use temperate language in attacking and even denigrating their opponents. It is the language they use that makes the blood of foolhardy supporters boil.
So, on with the game. We’ll be almost out of energy and bored nearly stiff by the time it is over.