From Mr A. Camilleri

Daphne (TMIS, 10 February) rhetorically asks: “How do you vote for a party when its policies clash with your beliefs?” The answer is simple: You don’t!

The current Nationalist strategy is based principally on a scaremongering campaign against change. This fear campaign is being carried out using billboards, advertisements and apparently a number of columnists in various English language newspapers. The fear campaign against Labour is to portray them as dangerous and incapable of governing, while the one against Alternattiva Demokratika is that a vote for them is a lost vote for the Nationalist Party.

It is evident that the feeling of growing support for Alternattiva Demokratika is a strong concern for the boys at Pietá. Once again, instead of reaching out to the disillusioned voters who once voted blue, the Nationalist Party leadership is opting not to change policies but to try to paint disillusioned blue voters into a corner through fear of change. In my opinion, this is a big gamble and it will fail, just as the foolish spin on abortion during the MEP elections of 2004. It is an almost certainty that disillusioned voters will call their bluff. A less risky

gamble would have been a coalition.

Mrs Caruana Galizia also writes: “It doesn’t take a mathematical expert to work out that the likelihood of divorce being introduced... is statistically much higher than the likelihood of those changes being brought about by a party with one seat in Parliament…”. Actually, I see the statistical chances of Osama Bin Laden converting to Catholicism as being far greater than those for divorce being introduced by the current fundamentalist Nationalist Party government.

She should, however, tread carefully with this line of reasoning. If she is correct (and she is not) the only statistical option for voters who want divorce to be introduced is to vote Labour. Although downplayed by both major political parties, divorce is one “unmentioned” driver of where floating votes will go. Why should pro-divorce voters vote for a Nationalist Party that is vehemently opposed to divorce legislation? The answer is simple – they won’t.

I suggest that Mrs Caruana Galizia refrains from further nonsense on this subject and uses her column space to appeal to the Nationalist Party to form a coalition with Alternattiva Demokratika. She could also use her energies to appeal to the Nationalist Party to eat

humble pie and change direction now, not after 8 March.

What Mrs Caruana Galizia and the Pietá “gurus” tend to forget is that votes belong to the Maltese, not any political party, and this fear-mongering may actually generate more resolve to break this political stagnation.

Anthony Camilleri

ST JULIAN’S