The general election is over. The Labour Party was confirmed as Malta’s government for the next five years. Let’s look at the results and try to come to some conclusions.
Like the election of 2013 the gap between the two main political parties remained 35,000 votes. Labour added 3,444 votes to the 2013 result and the Nationalist Party added 3,270 votes. Opinion polls were showing a gap of between five and seven per cent until the last two weeks, and prior to the election campaign when with the power of incumbency Labour voters who had decided to switch to the PN, or not vote at all, changed their minds and reverted back to Labour.
The phrase ‘power of incumbency’ was coined in the United States and was mentioned for the first time by Alfred Sant, only to be abused by the Labour administration during this general election. A poll conducted by the Times of Malta in which your readers were asked for their opinion about what led to Labour’s big victory, indicated that of the over 10,000 readers that participated in this poll, 33 per cent, that is the highest percentage among the four alternatives, said it was the power of incumbency.
Since 1962, save for Alfred Sant’s short administration, both the Nationalist and the Labour parties won two successive elections with the same, or increased, majorities. George Borg Olivier won the 1962 election with 42 per cent of the vote and the 1966 election with 47.9 per cent of the vote. Dom Mintoff won the 1971 election with 50.8 per cent of the vote and that of 1976 with 51.5 per cent of the vote.
The 1981 general election was won by Labour under Mintoff but with a minority of votes, 49.1 per cent. The PN led by Eddie Fenech Adami mastered 50.9 per cent of the vote but due to the gerrymandering in the drawing of the electoral boundaries, Labour obtained more parliamentary seats than the PN. For five years Malta was in a state of political turmoil.
The power of incumbency was stretched to the limits prior to the 1987 election when the Labour government, led by Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici, employed more than 8,000 persons in the public sector in the six months prior to the election.
With hindsight I think that it would have been better for the PN to lose the 2008 election than win with such a meagre majority
In 1996 Labour was again elected with a majority of 50.7 per cent but managed to stay in office for only 22 months because it was voted out of power by Mintoff.
The 1998 election was won by the PN with 51.8 per cent of the popular vote. As was that of 2003 won with the same majority. Half way through the legislature Lawrence Gonzi took over as prime minister from Fenech Adami. Gonzi won the 2008 election with 49.3 per cent of the vote. That was Gonzi’s election because he rose above everyone else and won the day for the PN.
With hindsight I think that it would have been better for the PN to lose that election than win with such a meagre majority. But not for Malta, which went through an economic miracle during theworld’s worst economic and financial crisis in 70 years. Not that I didn’t do my best for the PN to win. But that victory damaged the Nationalist Party.
The elections of 2013 and 2017 are recent history. Following the electoral drabbing of 2013 nobody should have ever thought that in the following election, just four years later, the PN would turn a 35,000 Labour majority into a victory. Surveys were showing just that, a victory for the PL.
There were 8,372 voters who did not bother to collect their voting document. Most of them were in PN-leaning electoral districts. A total 18,788 didn’t vote. There were 4,031 invalid votes. In all 31,191 voters.
Putting the blame for all this on Simon Busuttil is ungrateful. Busuttil gave the PN a new lease of life. He was the party leader for only four years. Other political leaders lost and won, and still remained at the helm.
Borg Olivier won the 1962 and 1966 election and lost in 1971 but was still given another chance in 1976. Mintoff lost in 1962 and 1966 but won in 1971 and 1976. Fenech Adami won in 1987 and 1992. He lost in 1996 and was confirmed by the PN delegates as party leader. He then led them to two electoral victories in 1998 and 2003. Dr Gonzi won the 2008 election. He then lost and called it a day.
As deputy editor of Il-Poplu, the official paper of the PN in the 1960s, I had my first experience as a journalist in the 1962 general election. Since then 13 general elections were contested – seven won by the PN and six, including the last one, by the PL.
Two referenda were also contested: one on Malta’s Independence and the other about the country’s accession to the EU. These were both won by the PN. But you cannot always win. In a democracy the will of the people prevails.
Busuttil took over the PN in a very bad shape, with the morale of party supporters at its lowest and the party’s finances in tatters. He managed to turn the tables, but not enough to get the desired results. Results take more than four years to come especially if you start with such a great disadvantage.
In the last few months Busuttil proved himself as a leader. So he shouldn’t leave now. Simon should stay on. The PN needs him. Malta needs him.
Joe Zahra is former editor of In-Nazzjon.