As we get closer to the next general election landmark, the political parties and individual politicians will concentrate more and more on an analysis of the electoral mood. Which way is the wind blowing?

It is an uncontested fact that the Malta Labour Party has won all five electoral consultations since the last general election and has increased its relative majority in the process. Seen from this angle, the wind has been blowing in its sails.

On the other hand, in the course of the aforementioned consultations, a substantial number of voters stayed home and did not vote at all. The ‘abstentions’ vote was substantially larger than usual in the last round of local elections, when weather conditions were far from inviting. How many of those who failed to vote were put off by the inclement weather? How many of them simply couldn’t care less about local issues? And how many were disenchanted by their respective political parties, and cut loose from their moorings? All of these may be holding a trump card come the next general election.

In the final analysis, the main parties are backed by a massive hard core whose war cry is “My party right or wrong”. This hard core will not decide the electoral outcome.

The electoral scale

In the ultimate analysis, it is not those who wave the flags who will decide the issue. The electoral scale will tilt under the weight of those who have stayed at home.

Analysts who survey the local scene with detachment and who keep their feet on the ground, know that the sovereign arbiters are the so-called floating voters. These voters have their own personal motivations. Politicians and their respective party machines will now try to convince them to vote one way or the other.

The parties (and some of the media) have been conducting their own opinion polls. Significantly, the parties do not publish the detailed results, although some information may be leaked in order to gain electoral advantage.

The fact that the pollsters do not lay all the cards on the table raises questions in the minds of floating voters, who will have to rely on their own hunches and their instincts if they vote at all.

Significantly, opinion polls emphasise that there is still an element of voters who have either decided (up to now) not to cast their vote, or who have not yet made up their minds.

The rest of the election campaign will focus on these voters – which explains why some politicians are already making themselves look silly by making commitments that are outright ridiculous. It may also explain why some other politicians are desperately hoping to win negative votes by maligning or denigrating their rivals.

Thinking electorate

It is true that all is fair in love, war, and politics. But it is just as true that thinking electors, who involve their interests and those of their families in their political equation, would be interested in feasible measures that are conducive to a sound national economy and positive initiatives likely to enhance the economic environment.

I believe that, if anything, the floating vote in these islands has been steadily getting bigger and the post-independence generation is more emancipated and conscious of the imperative of Malta’s survival in a competitive world. Voters in this category are not moved by partisan invective, but by businesslike policies that hold the promise of a stable future. They are more disposed than their elders to assess the performance of their politicians.

Today’s floating vote is largely made up of different lobbies with particular claims and grudges. Does it include a huge segment of the upwardly mobile middle class that has economic interests to protect from the predatory politicians whose money-no-problem outlook may have endangered their savings and undermined their status? Does it include voters whose personal ambitions were not satisfied by the government now in office? Are these “lost sheep” still estranged from their old flocks?

Desire for change

Professional scientific research could provide some of the answers to these questions. The political parties would run the danger of antagonising, rather than winning over, the floating voters if they do not find the right answers to these questions.

The effects of election propaganda on political opinions and behaviour are the object of esoteric studies that cover the electoral mood at any given time, and the particular historic background in a particular social milieu.

From the more recent electoral results, it appears that the general mood is a desire for progress in change and a departure from the old-fashioned outlook of yesteryear. This is why the political parties are looking for young blood. And why the electorate feels the need for tomorrow’s politicians to abandon old methods in preference to an all- inclusive approach, where political party electoral programmes are really responsive to the aspirations of civil society.

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