The question everyone has been asking publically, behind closed doors or to themselves is when, exactly, the next general election will be held. 

And truth be told, the answer is not an easy one and quite possibly the only sure bet is that the man who holds the prerogative to call the next general election, the Prime Minister, will keep his cards very close to his chest until the very last minute. The move will be very well calculated and all things, not least of which public sentiment, will be taken into very careful consideration.

Yes, the writing has been on the wall for some time now that the election will not be held within the usual timeframe, which dictates that it would be held sometime between March and June 2018. 

For months on end, this newsroom has been informed that the election will be an early one and that it will most probably be called for sometime in November. But now we have been reliably informed, and as reported in today’s issue, that the timeframe has been pushed forward significantly and that the power brokers at Castille have opted for a sweltering summer campaign and election.

There is no doubt that the Labour Party’s election machinery has been put into high gear – government politicians have been going door to door, their offices are calling people at home to see how they can be of assistance. Their social media feeds are ablaze with propaganda, government-friendly billboards are sprouting up all over the place and the government has gone into overdrive, bragging about how well the economy is doing, although the amount to which the trickledown effects are being felt by Joe Citizen are questionable.

The country has actually been in campaign mode for at least the last year, since the outbreak of the Panama Papers scandal and the Opposition’s accompanying public protests against corruption.

And there is no doubt that the government’s biggest fear going into an election is the residual and lingering effect of this scandal that just won’t go away no matter how much the government attempts to whitewash it. This has undoubtedly been the worst scandal to have hit a government for quite a long time and that mud will stick for even longer.

The latest broadside came from Nationalist pundit Daphne Caruana Galizia, who claimed yesterday that she has come across information showing that large amounts of money were transferred from Azerbaijan to Mizzi and Schembri’s Panamanian companies.

After months on end of the government asking ‘where’s the proof’, as though the apparent intent was not damning enough, someone is now threatening to come up with something that may at the very least be passed off as proof as far as the public is concerned.

Any good politician these days knows very well that perception is just about everything. All someone has to do in politics, and especially in these frightening days of post-truth politics, is to make a suggestion and the perception sticks.

This may very well have been the thinking behind the quick retaliatory statements released by both Minister Konrad Mizzi and chief of staff Keith Schembri in quick succession yesterday. These two individuals rarely deem it fit to reply to the ‘hate bloggers’ accusations, but not so this time around. 

This time it was a different story. This time Schembri’s reply came a mere half-hour after the offending post was uploaded, and Mizzi’s came 45 minutes after that. Both also said they would request the courts to hear their cases with urgency, and Schembri on his part challenged Caruana Galizia to comply with the request. 

Yes, this may very well mean that they are innocent of what they are being accused of, or it may mean that they firmly believe that none of what is being alleged can be proved. 

But it could also mean that they are intent on seeing those claims addressed in a court of law one way or another and as soon as possible, because a July election is actually on the cards at Castille and they certainly cannot go into an election with such accusations and an ongoing court case hanging over their heads. Whatever the case, these lawsuits will be a make or break moment for the both of them because there is, after all, an awful lot riding on them.