The spring hunting referendum has come and gone and must be respected for what it is, a narrow but definite victory, for the yes vote. However many conclusions can be drawn from the ourtcome. The first is that the Prime Minister told us that he would vote yes but would allow his party supporters to vote how they like.
He did the exact opposite! On noticing that the no vote was surging ahead and realising that he did not want to find himself in hot water and have the hunting lobby breathing down his neck, he reversed tack and started to oil his party machinery to work covertly for the ‘yes’ vote. He personally spoke out in favour of spring hunting at a Sunday Gozo meeting in a district he knew was a lynchpin one. There were other several similar directions from the top. The editorial of the GWU newspaper started to lean obviously towards the ‘yes’ vote especially towards the end of the campaign. On the day of voting, the PL used its telephone and SMS networks to lean as heavily as possible on PL supporters. Many of them do not need much leaning on anyway, as they blindly follow the party line! So it transpires that we have a Prime Minister who is a good strategist but a completely dishonest one at that. Saying one thing but doing another! Soft talking one way and hard kicking the other! This should be kept as a mental note for future reference. Most of us are not fools and we could see the Prime Minister’s slip constantly!
The PN leader decided to declare his support for the ‘yes’ vote for his own reasons which he made clear and also gave his party faithful a free hand. To his credit, he was man enough to stick to his word and I can attest that the PN media and party line did not lean one way or another. In the circumstances however, as I stated originally, I would still have preferred to say nothing at all and I would have left the choice completely in the people’s hands without leaning either way. In life you can say no, you can say yes and you can say nothing at all!
Alternattiva Demokratika obviously supported the ‘no’ vote. Now they are out to gather the votes of those in the ‘no’ camp who were miffed by the attitudes of the major party leaders.
The SHout campaign had many shortcomings. They were amateur in their approach and strategy and once the ‘yes’ people had obviously hired professional help in their campaign, they should have done the same at once! As it was, they were finally outshone even though they had a fine cause to push. “In the Legion you either march or you die” the saying is. When playing this referendum game, one must play it well or not at all.
The hunters now have their spring hunting season (other seasons not contested) but public opinion is turning fast, and where public opinion turns, so do the political parties! It is up to them to show everyone that they are capable of keeping within the law. Otherwise this theme will come up again and again and there is no need for another referendum for things to change, there is the national Parliament and there is the European Parliament and Commission! If your hobby is shooting at birds others have the hobby of bird watching. So whose birds are they anyway? They are not owned but are common heritage ( Res Comunis) material!
There are positive outcomes for the environmental lobby. No matter how much the big wolf huffed and puffed with all his might, the actual difference in the vote count was in fact very small considering all. This showed that the environmental issue and lobby is now a substantial national one and there to stay and a strong political statement was made through the referendum. The environmental and ecological issue is an objective moral issue in its own right. Get your game together and treat it as such! Many people are feeling and realising that the environmental and ecological degradation around us is not being politically countered effectively and more protection and respect is required all round. I suggest that they now make proper use of this new-found source of strength and influence to lobby political parties for proper environmental policies and shoot down the quagmire we have been subjected to particularly in the last two years. Do we actually have a Minister for the Environment anyway? My advice is to avoid hitching your bandwagon to any particular political party which might try to take advantage of the present situation. Yours is a single issue lobby (the environment) as it should be and remain, while political parties are concerned with multiple issues as they should be and political parties that purport themselves as single issue parties, usually get nowhere or are taking others for a ride.
The referendum was narrowly won by the ‘yes’ vote, notwithstanding all it had going in its favour and narrowly lost by the ‘no’ vote, notwithstanding all it had going against it. Nothing will however be the same again. The political landscape has been irreversibly changed forever and put on notice! Political parties please note!