The fact that Malta’s on again, off again election campaign has coincided with the run up to America’s presidential elections, has made it quite easy to compare and perceive the contrast between the two.

The US is having one of its most interesting, unpredictable, and fiercely fought primaries in years, during which the Republican and Democratic parties have to choose their respective candidates. It’s a long drawn out, rather complicated process, but what interests me most is the level of debate and the kind of questions thrown at the presidential hopefuls.

Last week, for example, after she had just lost the Iowa caucus and was trailing at the polls, Hillary Clinton was asked whether she thought she was losing out to Barack Obama because, compared to him, she is not “likeable” enough. The former First Lady had the grace to bow her head, and after forcing a pained smile, she said quietly, “Well, that just hurts my feelings. I don’t think I’m that bad.” It was an innocuous enough remark but somehow it endeared her to commentators who saw a new side to the hard-edged Hillary. What scored even more points was when she added, “I agree that Barack is very likeable,” to which he smoothly replied, with impeccable timing, “well, I think Hillary is likeable enough.”

During another interview, when asked how she manages to keep up the pace of the exhausting campaign, Hillary’s voice cracked and quavered with fatigue and pundits immediately pounced upon this as signs that she was too “emotional” to be elected the first female President.

(Of course she then went on to defy all critics to win New Hampshire in one of the most stunning turnarounds in recent American political history).

Does it sound frivolous to conduct a presidential campaign on such trivial things? Perhaps.

But here, on this side of the world, we are arguing whether Dr Alfred Sant’s opinion piece in The Times and his interview with Kulhadd mean that the “truce” is over and that he is not really convalescing at all, but is back in the political arena with a vengeance. This means, presumably, that everyone can start bashing him again.

The truth is that people’s perception of politicians (and how they decide on who to vote for) is often made up of these “little things” – a careless turn of phrase, a slip of the tongue or simply bad miscalculation.

There is another point I’d like to make – observers have often said that this election is going to be a ‘presidential’ one where the campaign will be fought over who we would rather have as Prime Minister, rather than any particular party ideology. Excuse me, but hasn’t this always been the case? We like to pretend that we are voting for a political party and what it stands for, but every since I can remember, it has always come down to a choice between two men: Borg Olivier v Mintoff; Eddie v Mintoff; Eddie v KMB; Eddie v Alfred Sant; and now Gonzi v Sant.

Sure there were issues: some very real, some inflated, and some downright concocted, but who are we kidding? It has always been about the personalities, mannerisms and appearance of the candidates involved.

Who can forget the derisive references and jokes about Mintoff’s coarse analogies and his penchant for wearing a large buckle belt or KMB’s shock of white hair cut in a stiff crew cut? Then there was Borg Olivier with his plaintive cry of “Ejjew maghna” (“join us”, i.e. our party). In the case of Eddie Fenech Adami, who was given a makeover and groomed to perfection by astute advisers, the scathing remarks were aimed not so much at him but, unfortunately, at his dowdy wife.

As for Gonzi and Sant we have examples of two polar opposites. The man who smiles too much and the man who barely smiles at all.

Does any of this really have a bearing on who is best to lead the country?

Dr Gonzi’s constantly beaming face (even when faced with the embarrassment of a non-functioning ATM machine on one of the most important days of his life) might mean he is an affable kind of guy, and his ability to turn on the charm at a moment’s notice definitely works with “the common people”, as I have seen first hand. But should that make us choose him for our Prime Minister?

Dr Sant, on the other hand, is not only hampered by a rigid persona, but a seeming lack of foresight of possible repercussions when it comes to handling the press. Apart from the indisputable public’s right to know, it was patently obvious that by “telling” everyone not to speculate about Dr Sant’s illness, the MLP machine ensured that everyone would do just that. If they (or better still, he himself) had just come right out and said what was wrong, it would have nipped all rumour and gossip in the bud rather than fuelling it. The attempt at keeping it all hush hush simply handed his critics yet another golden opportunity to bash him.

* * *

We have been assured that the euro changeover was smooth, yet at every establishment I’ve entered, people are full of anecdotes about arguments, cock-ups and supreme confusion. Frazzled bank employees have to handle musty, mouldy coins, some even dating back to the era of Agatha Barbara. Meanwhile, equally stressed out shop keepers have been lumbered with what can only be described in Maltese as a major kanna (completely untranslatable, but let’s just call it a sort of pain in the neck). Obliged to accept Maltese money until the end of the month, they have been swamped by a wave of egotistic consumers who (predictably enough) were using any pretext for shopping to convert their currency.

What astonishes me is not that this has happened, but that not one of the brainy types at NECC saw this coming. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that when you give people such a long timeframe to keep using local currency, they are going to milk it for what it’s worth to avoid queuing at the bank.

Perhaps those who make these decisions are completely removed from the typical Maltese psyche which – when given a deadline – will procrastinate until the last nano second.

Or have we already forgotten that infamous incident of us losing precious EU money because an application for funds was submitted 40 minutes late?

As for the confusion about the new currency, it’s not because the publicity campaign was not good enough, or that the information is not available. I think it all boils down to another aspect of the Maltese mentality. A lot of people simply shut out or ignore what doesn’t interest them, and before the euro changeover actually happened it was still too abstract for them to realise what it would actually mean. Now that they are faced with it every time they want to purchase something, it is dawning on them that this is for real. And that is why a sizeable chunk of the population (and not just the elderly!) seems to be blinking in bewilderment and disorientation at the strange coins in the palm of their hand as if they have just woken up from a deep sleep: Who? What? Where?

It may be laziness, lack of education or more likely lack of common sense (which as the saying goes, is not so common)… but when I explained to a woman younger than myself that if one euro equals 43 Maltese cents then one euro cent equals 0.004 of a Maltese cent, she looked at me as if I had discovered the meaning of life.