The boffins running the party machines in Malta know that, in politics, as elsewhere, images can be crucial — which explains why the ruling Nationalist Party is bent on capitalising on its track record that led to Malta’s eventual accession to the EU and why the opposition Labour Party is highlighting Malta’s present predicament, brought about by the PN’s mismanagement and profligacy.

As democracies mature and education (and sheer experience) makes an inroad, society begins to take a more accurate size of the party machines, and the electorate forms a hard core of floating voters, whose detached views hold the power of swinging the scales one way or the other.

Vital record

It is this vital hard core that matters most — and the party machines will focus on it as a matter of priority, even though the hustings may, at times, provide the stage for an Olympiad of insults and personal recriminations.

The party strategists know that nations, like individuals, through all their life, ascend a steep slope, flanked by precipices on which they are never permitted to rest. Each day and week is a departure. Each month a battle.

Politics is a game from which no one can withdraw with the winnings at any time. Hence the need, of political leaders and electors alike, to assess the environment and test the waters before every decisive move

I recall the view, expressed by a local columnist some time ago, that politics has become, all the world over, “the art of the bland, of not making too many specific promises, of aiming at the greatest concentration of people, at the highest common factor, or the least common multiple…of ruffling the least feathers and avoiding any undue confrontation.”

Looking at the next electoral confrontation from this perspective, some politicians may be tempted to think that the real issues need not be put forward in rough and exact terms, but hidden under tons of verbiage and optimistic verbal sign language.

The middle ground

There may be something in this assessment, seeing that politicians, on each side of the political divide, may be anxious to capture as much as possible of the middle ground.

This being the mood of the hour, an extreme political stance may be anathema to the majority of thinking and worried electors.

None of this, however, would prevent the Labour opposition from being confrontational, in so far as it is committed, rightly or wrongly, to voice the concerns of the downtrodden majority and to hold the government party accountable for the plight of the Maltese economy, arising from a mixture of mismanagement and paralysis.

Seasoned observers of the local scene tend to believe that the quest for the common ground is an imperative because it is the cradle of the floating vote. Pluralism has made inroads in the Maltese social and political milieu, dispelling the thick fog of polarisation of former years. In this climate, it is the rational approach rather than mass euphoria and outright radicalism that will, ultimately, be the decisive factor.

Decisive factor

The decisive factor, come election time, is how to win more adherents to the fold, not how to keep one’s traditional supporters on the qui vive.

The political parties seem to realise all this and are charting their course accordingly. This is why the political game is an exercise of more of the same, by way of speeches and strategies – saving, of course, unpredictable situations or mistakes that may change the political landscape as we know it today.

Seen from the viewpoint of Alternattiva Demokratika, the political landscape presents a two-party duopoly to the electorate – essentially one corporate party with two heads, called PN and MLP, each wearing different make-up, but all sporting the same MLPN badge. From this perspective, the citizen is seen as being offered a choice every five years or so, between dad and worse.

From the Labour Party’s perspective, the elector is asked to look at a party purified by the fire of so many years in opposition, during which it made much homework and had all he time to reflect, and to learn salutary lessons in the process.

From the perspective of the Nationalist Party, the thinking elector may recall how he first moved from the fringes of the night to see the light of dawn, as he was relieved of the shackles of state control and made to savour a feel-good factor, only to end up in a stagnating economy, blighted by severe and persistent structural deficit and mountainous public debt.

From this standpoint, he may hope for better times springing from the new openings arising from EU accession.

All three perspectives may appeal in the abstract to the party faithful in the respective folds. Elections, however, are not contested in the regions of the spirit or in the rarefied air of theory. They have to do with realities past, present and future – with the threat of misery or the bitterness of past privations. They have to do with the future of one’s children and the bread and butter of the present and future generations.

When all is said and done, elections amount to an act of trust in persons who are given a mandate to administer the affairs of every citizen.

It is at this stage when personal considerations are of the essence. It is not enough to support a political programme. The programme has to be implemented by trustworthy persons whose record is above reproach. Mature electors owe their allegiance, not to a system or to a doctrine, but to their country and to the persons whom they choose to manage their own affairs.

Politics is about trust and stark reality. The rest is myth.

[email protected]