There has been an awful lot of hype surrounding Saturday’s double election, which is the largest the country has seen to date, combining as it does all the country’s local councils in one fell swoop for the first time, plus the European parliamentary elections.

As such, there is a lot on the line for both the larger and the smaller parties but, as per usual practice, it has been the larger parties with their larger soapboxes that have steered the debate, often into strange, awkward and unexpected directions.

First of all, this is not a contest between Joseph Muscat versus Adrian Delia, as the Labour Party has packaged it.

Labour and its leader insist the election is almost exclusively about a battle between Muscat and Delia.  That is far from the case.  On 26 May Joseph Muscat will still be the Prime Minister and Adrian Delia will still be the Leader of the Opposition.  They will remain right there in place and, irrespective of the result, no one is budging.

Nor should one be fooled by the grand project announcements being rolled out by the government on a daily basis, or even more than a daily basis. What are being announced are all projects that the central government intends carrying out and while they are indeed welcome and not be scoffed at, they have nothing to do with the subject matter of this election and to package them as such borders on the cynical and patronising the electorate.

This election is not about central government and its projects.  Obviously each and every project being announced every day is located within a locality, but these have very little to do with the local councils themselves.

Nor should one be blinded by the tax rebate cheques we have received yet again right when we were on the very cusp of an election.  These are no more than cheap, populist tricks.

These sort of gimmicks are not what the election is about, as much as the elections are referenda on abortion or tax harmonisation as the opposition is packaging it.

Both of the main political parties are equally guilty of taking the people, and the country, for a ride, of obfuscating the real issues and making these mid-term elections just about anything except what they are.

The opposition is also quite wrong in its crying foul over the spectres of abortion and tax harmonisation.  The Labour Party and the prime Minister have made it absolutely clear that abortion is not on the cards and with all the talk about Socialists wanting to introduce tax harmonisation across the EU, would it not after all be better to have Labour MEPs fighting from within the group that wants to introduce it and in the process provide death blow to many a Maltese financial services provider?

These elections are about these two issues as much as they about the violence of the1980s, another ogre the opposition rolls out every so often in the hope it might scare off.

On the local council level what they are about is the first time the entire country goes to the polls to choose what and who and what is best for their localities and how they are managed, it is not about the projects the incumbent party is rolling out one after another like some sort of all you can eat, pick and choose smorgasbord.

As far as Europe is concerned, this is about who will fight Malta’s corner and represent its interests the hardest and the best.

Those of a Labour stripe will argue that their current MEPs are doing just that best by quelling the debate at EP level about Malta’s numerous violations of the basics of the rule of the law.

Those of a Nationalist stripe contend that the only way to save Malta from itself, i.e. its own government which they contend is rotten to the core, they bring the issues of corruption to the EP not in order to shame Malta, such a suggestion is absolutely absurd, but in the hope that there might be some European power-that-be to bring the government under control and to instil some true form of accountability, transparency and honesty to the running of the country.

As such, the choice of who is serving Malta best in Europe may be somewhat subjective to many, academic to others and downright obvious to others still.  Our editorial stance on this matter has been crystal clear in the past, as it is now, and we implore voters to vote not with their hearts or pockets in mind, but with the minds and intelligence, beyond all the hype and with the real national interest at heart.

But, most important of all, we implore each and every member of the electorate get out there and exercise their right to vote.  It is sacrosanct and their opportunity to express themselves not on the social media but where it really counts – at the polls and on the ballot sheets.