I guess Dr Simon Busuttil will soon make it to the Guinness Book of Records since he must be the only Opposition leader to call on his supporters to celebrate a resounding defeat in an election!
When I heard his call for celebrations, I thought that they would be celebrating in a public square where thousands can congregate. In fact, Mosta was the first place mentioned. It seems that wiser counsel prevailed and Dr Busuttil and his crew decided to gather at the Siggiewi Club instead, knowing of course that only gullible diehards would take his call seriously!
Simon Busuttil should be comparing the results the PN has obtained since he became leader of the PN and Opposition leader. The only other election he contested in these positions was the European Parliament elections in 2014. In that election the PL polled 53.39 per cent of the vote while the PN received 40.02 per cent. AD and other Independents, including Norman Lowell, had got 6.59 per cent of the vote.
This time round, Norman Lowell was not there and AD and other Independents were only present in a few localities and just managed around 1 per cent of the vote. So where is the "reduction of the gap by half", when we know that Dr Busuttil is comparing the time when the PN was in government and the PL was in Opposition. Today the scenario is the opposite, the PN is in Opposition and the PL is in government.
The hard fact is that the PL government is the first government to win the local council elections when both the main political parties have taken part, while the PN Opposition is the first Opposition to lose them! If Dr Simon Busuttil were to check the results of past local council elections won, not lost, by Labour and what happened in the following general election, he may start coming back to earth!
Eddy Privitera
Mosta