Usually, people who are expecting to be interviewed make sure to have a fresh face.  But Ronnie Spiteri and his companion Joswa Borg, came to meet us in their garage red-eyed and evidently exhausted.

“Yesterday we slept at 3:30am. We’ve been sleeping so late for the last two or three months,” he said as he opened the huge garage door and showed me a colourful carnival float with a very familiar face on it.

On one side of the float, there’s Opposition Leader Simon Busuttil wearing a school backpack, riding a mechanical excavator.

Prime Minister Joseph Muscat sits on the other side, looking in the opposite direction. He is wearing a head-waiter uniform with an apron consisting of multiple flags carrying the Partit Laburista logo.

This is the first time that Ronnie and his dedicated team created a carnival float based on political satire.

The 20-feet-high float took six months to build and the artists have managed to create the two political party leader’s faces incredibly recognizable.

“Simon Busuttil is sitting on a gaffa, we named it Skansa. So we tried to combine a bit of the Gaffarena scandal and the Skanska issue at one go,” he explained.

Simon Busuttil’s shoes are a size 36, referring to the 36,000 votes by which the last general election was lost.

Meanwhile, Joseph Muscat is purposely put on his knees surrounded by all kinds of pasta.

“That was inspired by Marthese Portelli’s claim that the price of pasta will go up in Marsascala because of the Amercian University.”

Between Joseph Muscat and his political counterpart, Ronnie put the reception area at Mater Dei with huge cracks in the walls.

Ronnie and his team have been doing carnival floats for as long as they can remember.

“You need to be very committed. It involves a lot of sleepless nights and hours of daily work.”

Carnival float tradition involves also a lot of skill which goes beyond the artistic.

“Here we are all artists, engineers and painters. But most of all, we are very dedicated. Someone like us has no Sunday family outings.”

This level of commitment required might explain why not so many young people are interested in taking up this hobby.

In fact, 19-year-old Joswa possibly is one of the few young people who still enjoy heading down the garage and get their hands dirty.

The float is dismantled right after the carnival performance, but as Mr Spiteri explained, they hope they get to keep the heads for future exhibits.