On a remote Pacific island stands a massive fish-processing plant, recently shut down with the loss of thousands of jobs. It no longer produces essential food for the islands in the vicinity and beyond. Chaos in the food market followed and, despite many attempts to save it – which even included illegal activity such as packaging one type of fish for another, corruption of the establishment officials, downright lies and direct attempts to disrupt any growth of the competition – it simply failed to survive.
If a factory sells nothing, it soon closes down as people turn to new sources for food including to the competition – that offers them decent food at the right price.
So too in politics: if our representatives do not produce anything of value to the voter, they too are replaced and the clear rejection of traditional parties throughout Europe by the voters and their replacement by so-called populist parties is now undeniable.
We are witnessing a wave of new parties emerge: parties whose policies are hitting the right note with the voters. And hitting it so well, in fact, that one European election result after another is seeing new parties finding themselves in government, whilst traditional parties are suffering humiliating defeats, rejected by their own followers.
The Syriza party (a coalition of the Radical Left) emerged suddenly in Greece, grabbing 36 per cent of the votes: a natural reaction as middle-class voters rebelled against EU-imposed austerity. Compare this to Greece’s centre-left giant party PASOK which, from 44 per cent of the vote in 2009, won less than five per cent at the last election.
In Spain, the economic crisis and institutionalised corruption pushed the extremely laid-back Spanish people to also dump the traditional parties. Again, we witnessed the spectacular political rise of the left-wing Podemos (We Can) Party and the crash of the others.
Both France’s National Front and the Freedom Party in the Netherlands have gained popularity as their country’s traditional parties mishandled fiscal, social and economic problems. These parties rode the economic stagnation and the disappointment with the EU’s failed federalist dream. I believe that they only failed because they chose to also to use the oldest of extreme right policy (fomenting racist fear and anger over selective immigration, especially of Muslims) which guaranteed that only a small base of voters would respond favourably.
A few months ago, we experienced Alternative für Deutschland’s success in the German federal elections and the undisputed triumph of Emmanuel Macron’s En Marche in the French presidential election (along with the rejection of the traditional parties of the left or the right). UKIP had much success in the now infamous Brexit referendum, in which the British voted to leave the Union – a success that shook the EU to its very core.
Of course, we cannot forget the recent, great success of our friends and fellow members in the European Christian Political Movement (ECPM). ChistenUnie is now the moral safety valve of the new Dutch coalition government, delivering no less than a Deputy Prime Minister, two Ministers and one State Secretary.
This week we see once again the utterly humiliating demolition of the traditional parties in Italy and, again, the massive gains by populists such as the 5 Stelle.
This same pattern is being repeated throughout Europe. We have seen the success of so-called populist parties that went way beyond expectations. It is only in Malta that the tghana lkoll seems to be gaining in popularity and this because the other traditional party, the PN, has suffered much self-destruction by offering the same neo-liberal ideology and not much else.
In this new political reality that we are experiencing, these new European parties are not adhering to the traditional left or right-wing of politics but are a mixture of both and they are all voicing the people’s frustration for being completely let down by both the traditional left and the right.
The success of the new way of doing politics boils down to three main reasons being totally mishandled by our present set of leaders:
- The Eurozone: EU States outside the Eurozone have generally been faring much better than the ones inside. The economic mess that the Eurozone per se has created is making many people question whether the members of the EU oligarchy are actually clever enough to look after our interests or whether the whole mess is actually caused by them in the first place.
- Migration: The same can be said regarding how the EU is totally mishandling the migration crises that we face annually. Why do our leaders, after decades of repeated exposure and pain, not have even one workable policy in this regard – a common policy that is effective and that is also being followed by all the states in the EU?
The two points above are of genuine concern to people and yet the traditional parties ignore this reality. All that the EU seems capable and/or willing to do is offer more of the same solution: the imposition of more unworkable EU policies, despite these policies being the very things that caused the problems in the first place.
In our local political scenario there is a third factor that worries the voters: both traditional parties are now totally committed to the federalist dream that Schultz and Juncker have promoted so well. Both the PN and the PL seem happy to have our representatives in Brussels willingly being assimilated and playing along with the PES/PPE/ALDE conformity. Neither of them is willing to fight for our sovereign rights. The reality is that, instead of representing us and our dreams in Brussels, they have reversed roles and are pushing Brussels’ aspirations onto us, instead.
The ever-closer political union, the one-size-fits-all EU dogma and imposed integration without serious preparation is simply not working.
It is failing us all.
It is needlessly taking away our democratic and sovereign rights. Indeed, the EU is now seen as too distant by many, interfering more and more in our lives without producing any clear evidence that this is improving our standard of living.
All this failure is leading to greater and greater mistrust of our political class – at both EU and local level.
That the Maltese electorate wanted change and no longer trusted the establishment to deliver was evident in the routing that the PN got in 2013 – and its share of the vote has been diminishing ever since. Equally, few are comfortable with how the present government is working and complaints of corruption and dissatisfaction rise exponentially daily, both nationally and internationally. Trust, accountability and good governance are not words one would associate at all with tghana lkoll and, in Malta as well, we have experienced new third parties rising up to fill the void left behind.
Indeed, one of us ‘third parties’ also managed to get two seats in Parliament, to the detriment of the traditional parties: a reality that no one but the bravest dared dream of a mere four years ago.
Throughout Europe, then, these massive unproductive ‘fish factories’ that the traditional parties have turned into are just not producing what the people want. They are therefore being shut down and the people are gravitating to new parties.
While real change is happening at a fast pace around us, the older parties in Malta attempt to distract us with red-herrings such as whether calling someone a gbejna is politically acceptable or not, or entertained by Delia-shaped figolli.
We are fed well-timed conundrums that keep us happily inconsient and oblivious for weeks. The media ask us “who placed what photo and who removed which candles from which monument?” and “Is our Eurovision song video emulating the Mad-Max films?”
It is therefore left to us, the new parties, which are not obsessed with past glories nor ruled by a self-satisfied elite and are not powerless to respond to the changes around us and offer viable solutions. With all this change in mind, we will carry on working diligently (along with our European counterparts) to represent the real aspirations of the Maltese voter in the coming elections.
And beyond.