Perhaps the Nationalist Party post-mortem window has now expired. It’s been two weeks since their demise and defeat at the polls and there have already been a substantial number of autopsies on the March 9 election which saw Labour return to power with an unprecedented 55 per cent majority, an abundance of nine parliamentary seats and a surplus of 37,000 votes to play with.

The old Malta of red versus blue, us versus them,
is out, hopefully never to return

I’m not sure I will be telling you anything you don’t already know. It’s gotten a bit old now and I run the risk of overstretching the point and sounding like a broken record, or more appropriately, like someone who is still wishing you a happy new year well into March.

And yet the magnitude of the victory and what it signifies is too big an elephant to ignore. Apparently, even for PN party insiders who could no longer hold it in, and who uncharacteristically – and somewhat belatedly – lashed out and gave vent to the numerous reasons they pinned to the disastrous beating.

While some attributed their fall from grace to the stream of political invective directed at Labour, especially from vituperative columnists, bloggers and the not-so-impartial media, others put it down to last-minute theatrics and the ever-increasing electrics which had long been a thorn in the nation’s backside.

Austin’s Arriva and unaccountability was another major contender in the blame game; as was the €500 honoraria and the way the PN completely mishandled the divorce referendum and came across as a bunch of stuffy, narrow-minded, hypocritical old men who were completely out of step with the country.

And, of course, Franco Debono’s evil clique were always lurking somewhere not so far off in the distance, to remind the voter that here was a party far more concerned and caught up with fighting its own internal battles, minimising the collateral damage and looking out for its privileged posse.

There was so much internal strife to contend with that these people didn’t really have time to campaign, never mind run the country. We never really featured in the equation or stood a chance.

Then came Trafigura, which only served to reinforce our belief that while the rest of us had practically taken to burning the midnight oil because we could no longer pay our bills, quite a few other palms were being greased along the way.

This was a sentiment which came through loud and clear from within PN party ranks, in the immediate aftermath of the defeat. I must have read four or five testimonials from a number of normally taciturn and very unlikely Nationalist MPs who voiced similar fears, disappointments and concerns. Which made you wonder how 44 per cent of the electorate could be so convinced about PN, when they themselves clearly weren’t.

Beppe Fenech Adami seemed to attribute the defeat to the oil scandal – which he claimed cost the PN their moral high ground – as well as the politics of divide and rule. In his words, “all human beings are equal and ought to be treated as such” – something his party clearly failed to grasp. Had they gotten off their high horse during the campaign and admitted there might be a problem after all, I reckon it would’ve probably scored them points.

I wonder whether the PN has finally understood what a complete and utter turn-off their divisive Nationalist Face campaign proved to be, to all but the speck-seeing bigots among us. It was a campaign which managed to turn off moderate and level-headed Nationalists, many of whom voted PN by force of habit, but secretly hoped for a PN defeat and breathed a sigh of relief when it was all over. Unsurprisingly, the people who did their utmost to scaremonger and remind us that a Labour Government would send the country back 30 years, were the only ones remotely interested in going back there. We even had Eddie Fenech Adami return to the granaries to deliver one of his signature speeches, in what was a very bad judgment call and a desperate throwback to the 1980s.

Facebook frequently degenerated into an ugly exchange of barbs, boycotts and personal attacks on anyone who had the temerity to suggest that they no longer felt comfortable supporting a government just because once upon a time, it was a very good idea.

Malta is mostly made up of people who are too unimaginative to revise their political allegiances from time to time and who think that political affiliations, like brown eyes, are something you are born and stuck with. With like-minded thinking, the PN would never have got into power in 1987. And even then, they swung it marginally, by 8,000 votes, when in truth, back then the swing ought to have been much bigger.

This time round, 30,000 more people changed their mind one way or the other. It may have been a huge victory for Labour and a testament to Joseph Muscat’s hardly amateur campaign, which was quite flawless and exactly what the doctor ordered in the particular political climate. While the PN tried to categorise and label, Muscat’s campaign didn’t. It allowed you to be whoever you wanted to be, because nowadays people don’t want to be put into boxes, talked down to, made to feel inferior or patronised.

What this election certainly proved is that no government can overstay its welcome and that the old Malta of red versus blue, us versus them, is out, hopefully never to return. And that clutching to one’s glorious past while fumbling in the here and now is clearly not good enough.

michelaspiteri@gmail.com