36,000. To foreigners, unless they are very interested in our political intricacies, this is just a number. In Malta the number has magical, nearly-supernatural powers. It is a number that scares some beyond compare.

All still remember it, all still talk about it as the number to whip out any time anyone attempts to criticise the way the government is going about its business.

But, like all magical numbers, even this 36,000 has a few negative sides to it for the ruling party.

The government led by Joseph Muscat is way too smug, believing this number, this chasm, is unassailable.

18,000 need to flee Joseph Muscat’s so-called movement and vote for the opposing party and we would have the parties at neck-and-neck stage again. An impossible scenario in theory but then again all scenarios, even the wildest, can sometimes turn into weird reality.

The Labour Party has gone from a movement that spoke in near-saintly mode to one that seems to have lost all its ideals. It is now on a spree to whip out as many favours to its boys—and fancy girls—as it possibly can.

No holds are barred, including giving a little boy a top fancy job in a fancier organisation invented just for him.

Instead of seeing the idiocy of their ways, the Prime Minister and his band of minions keep defending the indefensible, wallowing in the thought that the people at large do not give too much of a hoot, and banking on the fact that these same people are still angry at those perfidious people in opposition.

That might be true.

Until very recently it seemed that nobody would change allegiance so quickly. It also seemed that the Labour Party was actually increasing its lead.

The discerning ones who change allegiance easily and the ones who are usually deeply tied to their convictions were vociferous in their outright support for everything Muscat and his government did.

Comments are now surfacing and it seems that part of the electorate is not too happy with Muscat and Co’s behaviour. Even some people’s silence is gaining ground and sometimes silence is also damning.

For a long time Muscat seemed to be the embodiment of Teflon man and nothing bad could stick to him. However, the tide seems to be turning ever so slightly.

A few disgusted by this, that or the other is all it takes for that magic number, that number to numb all opposition, to dwindle and to turn Labour’s unbelievable victory into just another bit of junk to heap into the skip of mediocrity and waste.

  

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