It is no surprise that, as the prospects of a general election loom larger, a cacophony of voices from both sides of the political divide takes over the Maltese airwaves.

All the voices are the product of the spinning industry that is the backbone of latter-day politics. The industry processes electoral pronouncements and statistics, and turns them into sound bites.

Instant electronic sound bites, carefully crafted to catch the news deadlines, rebut or melt down the impact of unpalatable realities, thereby tranquillising public opinion – or so the spin doctors intend.

Quality of truth

The big spin does not rely on evidence for its success. It depends on repetition. But truth usually does not win out over spin when the two are equally free to compete in the arena of information and ideas.

It is this quality of truth that gives equilibrium to democracy. Once the sound bites are carried away in the wash, reality sets in and makes its impact in such a way that life goes on, and the electorate takes its bearings.

The one sure knowledge that survives is the fact that the electorate is on the qui vive. Increasingly it is insisting on its freedom to navigate by its own compass.

Chemistry of electoral behaviour

During all the five electoral consultations held since the last general election, the electorate demonstrated that it could swing the pendulum to the point of stupefying the apparatchiks in charge of the respective party machines

Journalists and commentators theorise about voting figures and subsequent opinion polls.

The electorate goes by its own experience and by palpable evidence.

More than anything else, it is this that changes the chemistry of electoral behaviour. In other words, electoral behaviour is influenced, in the final analysis, by immediate experience and not by make-believe.

Electoral aspirations

The electorate reacts, consciously or otherwise to the mounting strains of taxation. It responds to its forebodings when its spending power erodes with precipitate speed.

But it is overawed when it is confronted with tangible evidence of decay and mismanagement that threatens its own hopes of survival.

The electorate has been repeatedly confronted by evidence of bureaucratic extravagance and overspending under the eyes, if not with the connivance, of responsible ministers, and ended it with a monumental white elephant such as Mater Dei Hospital.

And while politicians traded accusations of incompetence and corruption, there has not been a single instance where the more serious accusations were investigated in broad daylight – not even when the charges were presented to Parliament by the Auditor General, as in the case of the Voice of the Mediterranean.

The electorate has seen the tourist sector passing through a period of turbulence in recent years, resulting in job losses and hotel closures. The situation was such that when Dr Gonzi took over the premiership three years ago, he assumed overall charge of the sector through the appointment of an inter-ministerial committee under his personal chairmanship.

The Malta Tourism Authority was overhauled. There was a change of chairman and a CEO appointed. Big plans were launched. The end result was that ,overall, the industry continued to lose ground, with the total number of bed nights diminishing, the CEO politely told to resign, and the MTA exhausting itself and its funds.

Performance rating

The performance rating for the Tourism Authority was certified by none other than Nationalist MP Pullicino Orlando, who proclaimed over his own name (MaltaToday, 13 June) that “accountability and discipline in the entity that is supposed to be the driving force behind the industry are conspicuous by their absence. The Malta Tourism Authority has been carrying a dead weight for years, officials who have absolutely no idea of what it means to be accountable. It is characterised by a chronic lack of discipline, drive and sense of direction at the highest levels.

“Decisions are taken and policies formulated without any depth of thought and, at times, mainly for the sake of appearance. A former official used to boast of running what he called a tight ship. The ship in question is, at times, akin to a rudderless version of the Titanic”.

Clamorous indictment

This is a clamorous indictment of the performance of the inter-ministerial committee over which the Prime Minister has presided for years.

It explains why hoteliers and operators in the tourist sector have been expressing their concern, and why public opinion was not at all impressed when highfalutin projects like ‘brand Malta’ turned out to be damp squibs.

These are the experiences that exercise the electorate with telling, often lasting, effect

It is dangerous for politicians to preach that “good governance is consensus-oriented, accountable and transparent” and that “the rule of law is equitable, inclusive and responsive to people’s needs” when the opposite happens during their watch.

Objective electors invariably compare and contrast. Electors who allow themselves to be deceived by politicians are twice shy, once they are bitten – all of which explains why the politics of make-believe contain the seeds of their own destruction.

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