At the point of writing we do not know which party will get the sixth seat in the European Parliament. If the PN gets it, it will be a consolation of sorts, albeit a very minor one.

LastSaturday's was, more than anything , Joseph Muscat's victory. Dr Muscat promised a political earthquake when he was elected leader and he delivered a mega-earthquake which changed Malta’s political landscape.

But I suspect that a latent Labour majority had existed just prior to his election as leader.

The Nationalists won the 2008 election by a whisker and only because the voters did not want Dr Sant to be prime minister. With Dr Sant out of the way they could safely feel that Labour was a realistic and workable option. Consequently they delivered a whopping majority to labour in the 2009 EP election, in the 2013 general election and now again in the EP elections. Last year's was undoubtedly the most important one, but Labour has had an electoral majority for the last six years.

Dr Muscat read the socio-cultural state of our country very well. He realised  when he became leader that there already was a Labour majority in the country. His task was to consolidate it, galvanise it and out it. He did this by looking at the small picture and adopting a niche kind of politics to accompany the big picture he concurrently projected. There was something in his packet for the gay lobby, the hunters, the developers, the environmentalists, those wanting a job, a permit, etc etc. He ferreted out all discontent – justified or unjustified – and promised ad hoc solutions.

He was wise enough not to stop there. He also projected a grand vision for Malta. He thus gave the people the reasons for changing votes even when these reasons were egotistical.

He promised a more reasonable utilities’ bill package. People believed him.

Dr Muscat did politics in a different way than politics was usually handled. He marketed all with extreme efficiency. The result of the 2013 election is now history.

Whereas a government’s first year is the year when tough measures are introduced, Dr Muscat considered his first year as an election year and did the things that parties usually do on election years. He wanted to keep within the fold the members of the grand coalition that had voted for him.

He tactfully re-classified the pecking order of the members of the coalition. Hunters and developers became more important than environmentalists and bird-lovers because there are more of the former than there are of the latter.

Did anyone realistically expect that those who had fiddled with electricity meters would  vote for the Nationalists, who had wanted the juridical process to take its course while Dr Muscat gave then an effective amnesty? No way.

And did anyone expect those who voted Labour because they were – justifiably or unjustifiably – angry at the Nationalists to now go back to the PN. No. They are still angry. A year is too short a period of time to placate their feelings.

Those who always voted Labour because of their Labour roots could be expected to stay Labour. After all they now had a government they had waited for for years. Why should they rock the boat and please the Nationalists? 

Those who had voted Labour because they had been promised something they wanted and were still waiting for it could also not be expected to vote PN.  Voting Nationalist would ruin their chance of eventually getting it.

Those who were allured by the big picture would tell you that the government had already delivered on a number of electoral promises, so why should they believe that it would not also deliver on the big picture as well?

Changing one’s vote after just one year is not an affirmation that the government was mistaken, but it is a strong statement that one has made a mistake. And no one wants to admit such a thing.

The coalition of grand, positive and egoistical values that Muscat so cleverly crafted is still there alive and kicking.

We should have seen it coming but we didn’t.

PS.1. Regarding the Nationalist Party and its leader Dr Simon Busuttil I have nothing to add to that which Dr Marlene Farrugia wrote in to-day’s The Malta Independent.

PS2. Can anyone explain to me how can one not describe as the paragon of negative campaigning the concentrated mega-campaign mounted against Dr Busuttil by the Partit Laburista?