There are many who believe that in politics what matters are policies and positions.

That is true, very true, but when the election season comes, a second factor comes into play – the personality factor.

Voters everywhere vote for people, real people. Somewhere, in voters’ minds, when they have to decide which name to choose, they relate to that person’s programme, including the political party and its track record, what it promises and where it stands, but they also relate to that person’s likeability or otherwise.

In times like this, when strong and many times hard decisions need to be taken, a politician who wants to be elected treads a very thin line. As a German minister reportedly said: “We all know what needs to be done, but we do not know how to do it and get elected at the same time.”

It would be fine if a politician only had to be nice to one and all for people to choose him or her, but things are never like that and at times like this they are decidedly not like that at all.

We can call today Super Sunday, based on the American model of Super Tuesday. We have the second and decisive round of the French presidential election, the general election in Greece, another one in Serbia and a municipal one in Italy.

Each merits its own analysis and the papers and the media have been writing reams and reams and spending hours and hours of debate on each.

Naturally, the French election takes pride of place, considering the importance of France and its central role in Europe and also the divergence between the two candidates, Nicolas Sarkozy and François Hollande, not just in their very different platforms but also in their very different personalities.

Reading the French election from here in Malta, we also tend to superimpose our own political pre-electoral situation, our perceptions about the state of the parties and considerations we all make on the clashing personalities.

The situation in France resembles that in Malta because both have Centre-Right parties in government that look like losing power to the Centre-Left. As I said last week, the recent opinion polls in Malta show Lawrence Gonzi to be far below Joseph Muscat by an even greater margin than Sarkozy was to Hollande.

There are the policies: in France much has been made (and elsewhere in Europe) about Hollande’s criticism of the Merkozy medicine of austerity for the eurozone. The Economist has called Hollande “a dangerous man”.

As Sarkozy pointed out in the one and only debate in the campaign between them (last Wednesday), Hollande has rejected many of the reforms that created German growth. He has also committed himself to actually undo the timid reforms pushed through by Sarkozy – so it will be back to retirement at 60 for some rather than 62, a minimum wage of €1,700 a month, tens of thousands of new teachers as a sop to their powerful unions without a clear explanation of how to pay for them, and a few dollops of class struggle, such as a new wealth tax and a 75 per cent rate for millionaires.

The irony is that as a young man, Hollande was on the staff of Francois Mitterand who campaigned on much the same lines and even more: he nationalized companies, raised the minimum wage, shortened the working week, boosted welfare and imposed a ‘solidarity tax’ on the rich. The result was predictable: capital flight, devaluation and unemployment. Two years later, he was forced to repent and turn around, back to discipline and the markets.

What happened then can happen today in a much faster way. France’s loss of competitiveness is all there to see. Last year, France ran a record trade deficit of €70 billion. Today’s traders will take revenge more swiftly and cruelly.

And yet, the probability is that Sarkozy will lose today. There is one basic reason for this: consider the results of the first round and one realises it is not just Hollande who is against the austerity medicine but also Marine Le Pen and Melanchon. Together, their votes make up some 60 per cent of the French electorate. This is the bastion of conservatism and protectionism against which Sarkozy, for all his flamboyance, could only scratch to produce the timid pension reform.

The only way Sarkozy, in desperation, tried to boost his chances was by going overboard on Marine Le Pen’s anti-immigration and protectionist vibes, which cost him support on the other side of the spectrum.

If he loses today, it serves him right. He should have tried much more to change France than he did, instead of all that rushing here and there, with all those summits with Merkel, and all that activism on issues which did not matter much in the end. As Schroeder found to his cost, it is not an easy task to change the habits of a country that has found shelter behind the high walls of protectionism. But it was far better for Schroeder to have fought the right battle, lost the election, but today can see the fruits of his struggle, and the German people can see it with him, than Sarkozy who did not fight the battle but who may nevertheless lose power today.

So that’s one level: policies. But there is another level: I hesitate to call it a deeper level, but I suspect it is. Sarkozy is very high in the antipathy league: he really rubs people’s noses the wrong way and there will be rejoicing in the streets tonight if he loses. In contrast, Hollande is a bumbler, a harmless gent you could leave your jewels with while doing something else. He came through last Wednesday as a steady person who did not allow Sarkozy to ruffle him, despite the jibes the more quick-witted adversary could marshal.

Now as regards the Malta scene: there are points of convergence and points of divergence.

Surprisingly, no one in Malta, but no one, absolutely, is questioning the EU, the Commission, the ECB, the handling of the crisis, the austerity medicine. You would not find any other euro country as docile as ours.

On the other hand, I see traces of antipathy versus Sarkozy in the attitude of many people as regards Lawrence Gonzi. Dr Gonzi seems to rub people’s noses the wrong way too, not just diehard Labour supporters, but also lukewarm Nationalists and middle-of-the-roaders. Yet he does not have Sarkozy’s yen for bling or his friendship with the super-rich, nor did he divorce his wife and marry a model half his age when in office, as Sarkozy did. The two, however, have an aggressive tone of argumentation that comes across badly.

I look back at the divorce referendum a year ago. The result, of course, could have gone otherwise, but its result has brought peace and tranquillity to the country. That was constructed over Dr Gonzi’s defeat.

This does not mean that Joseph Muscat is François Hollande – far from it. Dr Muscat is young and brash. Hollande is older and dependable. Besides, Dr Muscat is surrounded, as he was on Tuesday, by people from another era and the Maltese people have long memories. Hollande may have supporters around him from the last time France had a Socialist government, many years ago, but most diehards were with Melanchon and frankly ridiculed his ‘watered-down’ socialism.

Both Sarkozy and Gonzi ran tight ships, Dr Gonzi ran it even tighter. He saw off critical voices and even some non-critical ones as well. He let no rebellion flare up in Cabinet. He has faced the rebels on the backbench with guile, some astute moves, and has kept the balls up in the air, so far. But he did not stimulate those who remained loyal with promotions. Nor did he train any below the present Cabinet for future Cabinet roles. Sarkozy did not suffer fools or rebels gladly: I mention just one name: Rachida Dati, who, surprisingly, has now come back to support him.

Not so long ago, the President had little to say about her that was good. She had been Sarkozy’s high profile election campaign spokeswoman in 2007, for which she was rewarded with a Cabinet post, but she was ousted in 2009 and sent off to Brussels and Strasbourg as a Euro MP, seen in political circles as the equivalent of being sent into exile.

Wagging tongues said the fall out had been so spectacular that Sarkozy could no longer stand the sight of her, and the Elysée accused her of spreading false rumours about the state of the President’s marriage to Carla Bruni, the super-model turned singer, an accusation she vehemently denied.

Dati was born to a Moroccan father, a bricklayer named Mbarek, and an Algerian mother, Fatima-Zohra. Rachida Dati is the second child of a family of 12. She epitomizes the immigrants Le Pen wants to kick out of France, yet she has come back to argue that a victory for Hollande would be a disaster for France.

I get the impression Dr Gonzi would rather go down with the ship than give in to rebels. I am not talking about his nemesis, Franco Debono, who on Wednesday might still, if improbably, bring the government down and send everyone home.

But Franco Debono is not on his own: he is surrounded not just by his very high opinion of himself but also by those who support him and who encourage him to continue with his rebellion. So far, Dr Debono’s rebellion is paying handsome and unexpected dividends in situations that looked like not becoming unblocked otherwise. Forum’s inclusion in MCESD is just a case in point.

There is much, and on the other hand not much, that Dr Gonzi can do to overturn the antipathy stakes. Too much exposure in the public eye has that kind of effect. People tend to blame anything on a government that boasts it is responsible for everything. People, in France and in Malta, yearn for normality, for less visibility of the leaders on the national scene, less appearances on the daily news bulletins when they do not have much to announce, less ministers riding on the backs of each and every event like there’s no tomorrow.

The alternative to substantial change is revolution, real revolution.

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