Everybody is seeing red after Saturday's local elections. The Malta Labour Party (MLP) is seeing and savouring a sea of red: It scored an impressive victory, adding three per cent to its 2004 total to garner 53.2 per cent of the votes cast. It strengthened its existing majorities, and ousted the Nationalist Party (PN) from Mosta and Gzira, as well as from Xaghra on the back of a Gozo swing.
A large chunk within the PN has to be seeing red, clenching fists and gnashing teeth, having polled a miserable 43.89 per cent. It will not be taken in or be consoled by the early and sorry excuse for an explanation of the rout given to the media by the Deputy Prime Minister, Tonio Borg. It was natural for the government in office to lose ground in local elections, he said, adding that many Nationalists had stayed away.
Dr Borg did not bother to suggest the beginning of an answer to the obvious question, rubbed in by the smouldering ex-Finance Minister, John Dalli in The Sunday Times: Why did Nationalists stay away, with the government claiming how well things were going? Someone must have worked out for Dr Borg the full meaning of Labour's local triumph.
Applying the MLP's share of the votes cast to an estimated 95 per cent turnout in a general election, and assuming that 60 per cent of Saturday's absentees were Nationalists, the PN would still get only 46 per cent of the votes, one per cent less than Labour.
On its part the MLP will need to show some restraint in interpreting the result. If it makes the strong assumption that half Saturday's abstainers were Labourites, it would still be a mite shy of gaining an overall voting majority, though a general election turnout lower than 95 per cent would probably ensure the MLP of an overall majority of votes.
Away from the Labour euphoria-with-reservations and the despondency of the Nationalists, there burns a question - why did so many voters shun the polls on Saturday?
The 68 per cent turnout was abysmal, even by local-election standards. That many Nationalists stayed away can only be a partial explanation. Another, less identifiable, reason could be that voters were put off by the low quality of electioneering seen throughout the 2007 local elections campaign, and particularly so in its final phase.
Such voters might as well prepare themselves for more of the same to come, if not worse, in the run-up to the general election. MLP strategists will feel the winning local formula will also work when the Prime Minister calls E-Day. There will be more ferocious attacks on all the government's policies, as well as cold singling out of Nationalist actors in the local and national political scene with real or perceived shortcomings.
Nationalist strategists will plead that there is a full year for the electorate to appreciate the bonanza so regularly proclaimed by Lawrence Gonzi and his choir.
But they will intensify their attacks on Labour individuals, even as the Cabinet moves closer to throwing any remaining caution to the wind to press for a juicy Budget. They will electioneer constantly and more intensely, strengthening the growing doubt whether they do realise that they are paid to administer the country, not to party politically without end.
Twelve months of that twin approach and more people are likely to see red of the type that reflects anger towards the political class. The prospects are not bright.