Some time back, before the 1996 election, the assorted spin masters, public relations people and media consultants attached to the Nationalist Party must have got together to hatch their Alfred Sant Strategy.
At that point, they did not have Sant's obstinate anti-EU stance or dysfunctional VAT-substitute system to throw at him. They couldn't poke many holes in his political record as he didn't really have one. Well, yes he had been president of the MLP, but hands up those of you who actually believe that the party president in the MLP (or its equivalent in the PN) calls the shots? And Sant had been chairman of Metalfond which had gone belly-up, but still that was not enough to base a prolonged electoral campaign on.
The spin group were up against their biggest problem - a relatively unknown backbencher who spent most of his time in Parliament reading. As all seasoned campaigners will testify, a newcomer is a difficult opponent to nail. Even the experienced Hillary Clinton floundered when faced with the fresh-faced Democratic challenger Barack Obama and resorted to calling him "the unknown gentleman from Illinois whom the Republicans might find easier to beat".
The thing about a newcomer is that he has no baggage which can be used against him. There are no black stains on his record to make political mileage of, which makes it that much harder to neutralise him. The PN people knew this and got down to some serious head-scratching to deal with the contender to the governmental throne. Though there is no documented record of covert meetings held in the dead of night at PN HQ, we kept on seeing the results of those Nineties brainstorming sessions till a couple of weeks ago. The main limb of the anti-Sant strategy consisted of nothing more complicated than demonisation.
From the day the PN 'devil eyes' billboard campaign (rather unoriginally cribbed from the British Tory posters of Tony Blair before he became Prime Minister) to the day that Austin Gatt compared Sant's performance to that of the politicians' on Altered Statesmen, the emphasis has been as much about denigrating Sant's persona as his policies, or lack of them. A good many column inches have been dedicated to his annulment proceedings, his appearance, his Harvard degree - all of which have been remarked on sniffily and marked down as rendering him unfit to lead the nation.
Well, I hear you say, "Isn't that par for the course in a democracy? Isn't the electorate entitled to know all about the man who might be Prime Minister?" To a degree, yes. However, not all snippets of information, juicy though they may be, are pertinent when it comes to choosing the person who is to lead the country. Sant's physical appearance, for example, is not relevant when it comes to voting. If we had to go to the polls to vote only for the best-looking, better-groomed, hirsute candidates there wouldn't be much activity going on in those poll booths. As for Sant's marital status - well who cares - there may be other candidates who are denting the duvet with someone who is not their spouse, yet no one makes a fuss about it.
In any case, the Nationalist spin machine has dismissed such considerations and gone full tilt into the attack Sant mode. More than any other member of his party he is singled out to be at the focus of negative ads and campaigning. Ethics apart - for it seems that all is fair in love and election campaigns - this strategy has served the Nationalists well in the past.
You see, negative advertising works. In the US, extensive research has been carried out on this form of campaigning. The studies revealed that negative ads appeal to people's emotions rather than their minds. They raise interest in the election as well as raise the perceived importance of the election, which increases voter turnout.
Negative ads characterise the politics of fear - fear of the other and fear of change. The Nationalist Party has played on this, depicting Sant as the one person who is singularly unsuited to lead the nation. The focus has constantly been turned not only on his disastrous anti-EU policy but also on his persona, making out that he needs a charisma bypass and incrementally eroding any standing he might have had with light blue voters.
The upshot of this sustained campaign is that a large segment of the population has taken up the "anyone but Sant" mantra. For these voters, the electoral process has been reduced exclusively to an exercise in keeping him out of the prime ministerial office.
They are apprehensive about voting for a third party, such as AD which might stand up for issues they value, because it has been continuously drummed into their heads that there can be no worse proposition than Sant in government. Blinded by fear of the disaster which they think must necessarily follow if Sant wins the election, they fail to view the situation rationally. They will brush off suggestions that all is not well in the country by saying that things will only get worse if he is in power. Then they usually add that they might consider voting for a party which is not the PN were Sant not the MLP leader.
This is where it all starts unravelling for the PN strategists. They have built up Sant as the Anti-PM par excellence, singling him out as the reason why people should vote PN. Now his illness has made that position untenable. His predicament has attracted sympathy from all quarters, ruling out the PN's standard vilification strategy, leaving the spin gurus flailing around in unfamiliar territory.
One of the Prime Minister's winning gambits - the prerogative of calling an election when he deems it most advantageous for his party - has now been curtailed. Announcing it before Sant recovers seems rather like trying to steal a march on an injured opponent and might be deemed unsporting by the electorate.
Then there is the continuing public speculation that Sant might opt to take up a less prominent role as time goes by. None of these scenarios is to the benefit of the Nationalist Party. Still, they are the inevitable result of dealing in the politics of denigration and of the demonisation of opponents. After 12 years of throwing all its eggs at the same target, it is the PN which has ended up with egg on its face.
cl.bon@nextgen.net.mt