A general election usually asks voters what kind of world they want. In or out of the EU? More liberal or more conservative? It’s a test of our idealism.

But the vote of June 3 is different. It is, effectively, a test of our realism. It’s asking voters how they think the real world actually works.

It is Joseph Muscat’s re-election campaign that makes it so. As soon as the election was called, Labour drew two lines in the sand.

First, Labour says that all the corruption accusations levelled at Joseph Muscat are “mud” based on nothing but the word of an “extremist hate blogger” – Daphne Caruana Galizia.

The way the world works (according to Labour): vote for Muscat and you can stop all this mud flying about, with all the instability it causes.

Labour’s second line: the economy is booming. It will boom even more with Muscat’s promised tax cuts.

The way the world works, always according to Labour: vote for Muscat and you’ll prosper. Without Muscat: chaos.

That is the official campaign. At the unofficial level, in informal conversations, a more subtle version of the campaign is being waged, which taps into a common Maltese cultural bias: that we live in a fallen world and it’s often better to let it be run by a pragmatic sinner, who understands it all too well, than an honest man like Simon Busuttil whose very incorruptiblity makes him unworldly.

So the unofficial Labour campaign runs like this: yes, perhaps there’s more to Panamagate than Muscat has admitted. But who’s perfect? Meanwhile, he has a track record in overseeing economic growth. Why mess with that?

That’s the world according to Labour. Does it pass the reality test? Unfortunately, not. Take the corruption allegations. Why did Panamagate and Pilatusleaks stories have legs? They wouldn’t have got so far if they were a monopoly of Caruana Galizia.

In fact, the involvement of Konrad Mizzi and Keith Schembri in the Panama Papers has drawn worldwide attention. The major Maltese and European newspapers have it in their sights. So does the European Parliament. Everyone’s agreed that the established facts look like a textbook case of money laundering.

Likewise, Pilatusleaks cannot just be attributed to Caruana Galizia, who broke it originally. This newspaper has quoted the Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit’s report that recommended police investigation of Schembri – and thus independently confirmed one set of Caruana Galizia’s claims. The Malta Independent has interviewed the whistleblower on tape.

All this means that a Labour victory on June 3 will not stop the “mud”.

Muscat is proposing to pay for Scandinavian-style welfare benefits with a super-low tax regime. There’s a reason it hasn’t been tried anywhere else. It’s the road to bankruptcy

Panamagate and Pilatusleaks are now issues that go beyond any parochial partisan confrontation.

They are now subject to a triple scrutiny in the real, wider world beyond Malta itself.

First, regulatory scrutiny by European and global authorities, who are deeply interested in accusations of international money laundering taking place in an EU member state, courtesy of a bank with a representative office in London.

Second, there is scrutiny by the financial services industry itself.

Operators in the field are already experiencing it and feeling vulnerable to the possible repercussions.

Third, there is scrutiny by bona fide investors. The accusations concerning the failure of the institutions of rule of law are bound to undermine investor confidence that, should they have a dispute in Malta, they will be treated fairly.

Because Malta is wired into the real, wider world, what the Maltese electorate thinks is not enough by itself. Labour says that a vote for Muscat will put an end to the instability. But that is just not realistic.

What if the magisterial inquiry into Pilatusleaks finds no evidence of Muscat’s involvement? That’s not enough.

If Schembri, for example, is found to be tarnished, then Muscat will also be dragged in.

Any European prime minister would resign if such a close associate were found guilty in such a case.

In Muscat’s case, he is even more involved. Time and again, he has affirmed his trust in Schembri. He’s been prepared to ignore behaviour that has raised suspicions in everyone else’s mind.

Who’s everyone? Not just the Maltese voters. The world of our regulators, industry competitors and investors. If Muscat refuses to abide by the real world’s standards of accountability, their doubts and pressures won’t go away.

Our economy will not continue to boom under those conditions. What about the idea that Muscat’s tax cuts can keep the boom going?

That also fails the real world test. Mainstream economists – including quite a few Nobel prize winners – would call it voodoo economics.

Let’s put it this way. Muscat is proposing to pay for Scandinavian-style welfare benefits with a super-low tax regime. There’s a reason it hasn’t been tried anywhere else. It’s the road to bankruptcy.

If Muscat can make it work, he deserves the Nobel in economics himself. He’d have discovered new economic laws of motion.

At first glance, what he’s proposing might look like textbook Keynesianism, which recommends a role for government in infrastructure spending. But Keynesians recommend that for a recession in order to get an economy moving.

In booming times, they recommend governments cut back on spending and save the money for the time – which inevitably will come – when the economy begins to contract.

In the real world, booming economies always slow down. They always then need to be stimulated by government spending and tax cuts. A government that blows its surplus in a booming time will soon discover it has nothing to spend when things go wrong.

That’s exactly what happened in the US, when George W. Bush blew the surplus he inherited on unaffordable tax cuts. Muscat’s tax cuts are for a world, in a parallel universe, where economies only grow.

If this is the whole of Labour’s campaign, then there is only one inescapable conclusion. A vote for Muscat is a vote against the real world.

Hats off to Muscat for persuading so many people he’s a pragmatist. The evidence – including of his own campaign – suggests otherwise.

He’s an idealist, always hoping the real world won’t catch up with him.

ranierfsadni@europe.com

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