Perhaps one of the most interesting phenomena of this election is that an amazing three PN candidates who previously contested for the PN are now not only contesting, but contesting for three separate parties.
In case you don’t know, or only normally bother to read Sunday newspapers, they are Marlene Bonnici, former wife (even in divorce-free Malta) of Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando, who is now contesting for Labour, Carmel Cacopardo, who is now contesting for AD and Josie Muscat who is leading a new party.
Will this drain be reflected among voters, however, and who will really benefit from the disillusioned Nats? Of course, after 20 years in office it is entirely natural that there should be a change, but there is still a lot of huffing and puffing going on. Will Nats stay at home, invalidate their vote or cross over to Labour, AD or Josie’s lot – the three groups represented by these former PN candidates?
Around a fifth of the disillusioned Nats I know will go for AD this time. They are not worried by it at all. They stayed with PN to go for EU membership but are now not at all worried about having MLP members in Brussels.
In fact, if you think about it, the EU elections were the best we ever had, even though the result was not good for the PN (but still good when you consider how long they have been in office.)
In the EU elections we voted nationally, which makes eminent sense. We voted on merit not to get pjaciri, which also makes sense and should happen in general elections too, if we really want to improve the very poor level of people contesting in some cases.
More importantly, I think on the whole all those who were elected to the EU Parliament, both red and blue, have acquitted themselves well, although one is clearly intellectually much weaker than the rest.
So the fact that AD did not get in and a third MLP person did has not worried any of the floating voters at all. So although there was a bit of a panic when it happened, and the votes for AD helped Labour, this result, or the implementation of it, has been so peaceful that PN voters may well do the same again.
After all, that was always a key reason why people wanted EU membership – so their votes would not be so crucial again, that the country could still run well whoever was in government, whatever the coalition.
Yet the three who are now contesting as non-PN candidates are even more interesting for another reason. They reflect the key areas of disillusionment with a party that needs to embrace a wider group than it has to date, at least in two of the three areas I will now list.
These key areas are firstly, a liberal society that is not run or overly influenced by the Church, as Malta clearly is; secondly, a green society that does not kowtow to the building industry and thirdly, and unfortunately, a racist society that does not want black people in Malta. The hunters and racists who may get Josie’s vote are a lost cause for the PN, so they really need the educated liberal and environment-loving voters very badly indeed.
Of course, the PN cannot do anything about the third one, in the sense that neither the PN, the MLP nor even AD can embrace racism, so the PN cannot be re-elected unless it convinces people that it will tackle the other two main issues. So far, these have not been mentioned at all really, except cosmetically.
Like it or not, and clearly some at PN HQ do not, the PN must embrace the liberal thinkers (hardly wild stuff Maltese liberalism) and the environmentalists, (again, they are pretty mild).
More significantly, the educated and thinking and sometimes English-speaking voters – the ones who were keenest on EU membership – are now the ones who are running away fastest from the PN.
Like it or not, religiousness is ebbing away in Malta and though the pro-
religion group are the strongest lobby, they cannot get a party elected alone. So the religious groups have to decide, metaphorically speaking, who to go to bed with – the racists or the liberals.
To me, this is a very easy choice but so far it has not been made or not been made explicitly enough. There are articles every week, often written by women railing against Malta’s chauvinism, its cosmetic attitude to education, its non-child loving society, a society that appears to protect churchmen and paedophiles, a society where nice areas have been turned into dustbowls, a society that is still very far behind.
The colour-coded messages are these: The blue message is a semi religious one to vote for the lesser – in their view – of two evils; the red message is that there must be change. The green message is vote us in so that we can influence the big guys, red or blue. The black message is just in my view black, and I hope they get no votes at all.
Unless, therefore, there is another tumultuous event or change in the coming weeks, these colour codes will pretty much determine the next
election. Which message will you hear and vote for in the coming weeks?
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