The setting up of a pre-election alliance is a complex exercise. Alternattiva Demokratika recognised the strategic importance of forming pre-election alliances a long time ago – in fact, prior to the 2008 general election, it had (unsuccessfully) taken such an initiative itself.

The actual result of the 2008 general election was so close that any pre-election alliance would have had a substantial impact on the final result. This was very clear in the polls commissioned and published in the run-up to that general election. The difference in votes on a national level between the PN and the PL in the March 2008 general election was a mere 1,580, with AD receiving 3,810 first count votes. 

When examining the possibility of forging a pre-election alliance there is generally a choice between two approaches to take: either a principle-based approach or a pragmatic one.

The principle-based approach for a pre-election alliance seeks a long-term view based on building bridges that can possibly withstand the test of time. A pre-election alliance based on principles is based on an agreed shared vision. Even if it is not all-encompassing, this can be easier for voters to identify with as it entails a positive proposal: the shared vision.

On the other hand, the pragmatic approach is one aimed solely at the desired result. It is arithmetically driven. It can signify the lumping together under one umbrella of all sorts of views with (possibly) a minimum common denominator.

The National Front pre-election alliance set up by Simon Busuttil and Marlene Farrugia was, in my opinion, one of the latter. Not only did it include the Nationalist Party and the Democratic Party but also the fringe elements of the PN itself, which had previously been weeded out over the years as undesirables.

The National Front was a pragmatic exercise to the extent that an analysis of the actual votes cast clearly shows that the PD link with the PN resulted in no votes being added to the PN by the PD. Some may argue, for example, that votes cast for PD candidates in the fifth district (Marlene Farrugia’s home district), helped the PN turn the tide on Labour by recapturing Labour’s fourth seat. This is not so, as the gain of an additional seat by the PN in the fifth district was exclusively due to boundary changes: the village of Marsaxlokk having been moved to the third district and it being substituted by the hamlet of Ħal-Farruġ from the sixth district.  

The PN/PD alliance failed in its major arithmetical objective as it is clear that it failed to attract a significant number of disgruntled voters. Actually, it rather repelled them with its continuous negative messages and sent most of them back to Labour. Unfortunately, this failed attempt will dissuade any other attempt at alliance-building in the immediate future, as no political party enjoys being taken for a ride, as was Simon Busuttil’s party.

Declining the invitation to join the National Front as an appendix to the PN was the correct response from Alternattiva Demokratika. It was an exercise in foresight that has been proved right. Listening to ‘independent’ journalists and self-centred intellectuals advocating the Busuttil/Farrugia National Front was a very sad experience, as these were the same people who should have taken the PN itself to task for its internal contradictions on issues of good governance. By endorsing the PN-led National Front, unfortunately, they ended up endorsing the PN’s misdemeanours when they should have been at the forefront of those insisting that the PN clean up its act before claiming any right to wear the suit of shining armour.

In another context, it was former PN Finance Minister Tonio Fenech who made the most appropriate statement earlier this week in The Independent. Answering his own rhetorical question as to what the Nationalist Party stands for, Tonio Fenech replied: “The only true answer I can give is, I don’t know”.

And so say all of us.

 

An architect and civil engineer, the author is Deputy Chairman of Alternattiva Demokratika -The Green Party in Malta. [email protected] ,      http://carmelcacopardo.wordpress.com