In a week’s time, there will be another round of local government elections. And we will have another reading of the Maltese electoral sentiment.

There have already been two such readings since the last general election held in March 2003.

The first was the Euro-parliamentary elections of June 2004, when close on 50,000 first preference voters deserted the Nationalist Party in a dramatic exodus. (In the first Maltese election for the European Parliament, the Malta Labour Party bagged 48.4 per cent of the vote, the PN 39.7 per cent and Alternattiva Demokratika 9.3 per cent.).

The second was the last round of local government elections, held at the same time, when the Nationalist Party saw its share of the vote drop to 46.4 per cent, down from 48.1 in the elections for the same councils three years earlier.

This time round, the PN seems hard pressed. Its desperate last-minute decision to withdraw from the contest at Marsa and Zejtun was an exercise in damage-limitation and betrayed the Party’s anxiety. Alternattiva Demokratika is hoping to make its mark.

The Malta Labour Party will make a bid to maintain and enhance its advantage, thereby establishing a position of strength, in anticipation of the run-up to the next general election.

Gladiatorial contest

That’s the time when the gladiatorial context will come into its own. Already, we are being invited to focus, on the one hand, on the state of the economy, on charges of maladministration and corruption, and the degradation of the environment and, on the other, on the benefits of EU accession and on the prowess of the Gonzi administration.

In a sense, this will amount to ‘more of the same’. The diehards on either side of the political divide will not be overly impressed – not unless new scandals are dredged up, or dramatic new situations unfold. At best, the recycling of the same old arguments might influence the most marginal of floating voters.

Such a condition is not peculiar to present-day Malta. It is a condition that prevails in any viable democracy. In the final analysis, the performance of the party in office has a bearing on electoral perceptions, and so is the credibility of any alternative that could be expected from the Opposition.

The PN had been in office since l987, except for a short-lived 22-month interruption, and it will be contesting under a new leader, next time. Alfred Sant has led the Labour Party since March l992

Change of image

Dr Sant and his closest colleagues bent over backwards to change the party image. The bêtes noires were disposed of and New Labour emerged from the turbulence of earlier times. Party headquarters evacuated the fastness of the Macina to brand new spacious premises in Hamrun. The party became less populist and gained visibility and audibility in many households via its broadcasting media.

Dr Sant made an immediate impact in that he won the first general election after his elevation to the leadership – but he did not last a full term in office, having been first undermined and then stabbed in the back

While the MLP has been marketing “new” policies ever since, it has not come round formally to denounce the more nefarious policies associated with its past leadership

This factor bears close consideration because it may well turn out that the MLP has been winning support on the swings and losing some of the old diehards on the roundabouts.

This is not mere speculation. It represents the anticipations or observations, call them what you will, of Dom Mintoff way back in l993. At that time, Mintoff serialised his pensées in this newspaper and focused on the merits of true political leadership and the expectations of the masses.

Serialised pensées

He declared: “Knowingly anticipating being despised as an old fossil of a bygone age, I do not believe waiting for a new, crystal headquarters to be built, or a television station to be properly manned and opened, or blowing kisses at our opponent across the floor of an empty House, is helping our Maltese people to find some faith – old or new.” That was on 15 August.

On 29 August, Mintoff wrote about “Mice and Technocrats”. He seemed to be worried by the thought that majority and minority leaders could resort to make-believe and shadowboxing while power sharing. He considered this as a “deep pit” down which, he declared, “we are already half-way down”. He left his readers in no doubt about his own concerns. “I am afraid also that my party, the Labour Party, has not lost and is not losing much sleep over this,” he added, “scared still we are to disclose to our people that the socialist Opposition, besides dry lips, still has sharp teeth,” he insisted.

Mintoff is not the man to theorise. As always, he went on to express his sentiments into action He insisted that “the Opposition is, by definition and intent, expected to test the government’s stability on every occasion, preferably of its artful creation…”And so on, and so forth.

On 19 September, Dom turned once more to his theme, namely the basic differences that divide the Labour and Nationalist parties. And he peppered his reflections with more of his thoughts on what he considered to be inadequacies within the MLP. These thoughts looked like arrows aimed at the leadership, whether directly or indirectly

Residual fire

Mintoff complained that “at the very centre of our organisation, the Maltese media have bred a new cadre who, with the pretext of wanting to beat the Nationalists at their own game, make it a great point to suppress any reference to the true nature of our movement and our faith. For them, our past was stinking necessity and the less we mention it the better”.

Summing up all the residual fire in his belly, Mintoff savaged the Johnnies-come-lately without mincing words. He said: “In their new beginners’ handbook, volunteerism and activism are old-fashioned fads. Militancy is sheer lunacy. Lucrative, computerised, well-groomed professionalism is their only key to electoral success. According to these new crusaders, tomorrow’s utopia will belong to textbook-copying, paper-reading political debutantes, and all social controversy will engender no more heat or passion than an academic treatise describing why worms crawl but do not fly.”

In his inimitable way, Mintoff took the measure of the “professionals” who were then leading the Party by the scruff of the neck. He concluded: “the gloss of academical and technological novelty, which initially made an impression on the party faithful, is already wearing very thin and the workers are calling for less image-building and more action. Indeed, it will not be long before the verdict of history will show how these new paper-gladiators will have made less impact on Maltese socialism than a flea on a elephant’s back.”

Failed prophecies

Mintoff could be as colourful as he was emphatic. His prophesies never came true. Dr Sant won his first general election on assuming the party leadership. There is no way of saying how history would have evolved had he been allowed to run the full course of his legislature and if Mintoff did not intervene to torpedo Labour’s prospects. Mintoff certainly signalled a clash of wills within the MLP when Alfred Sant took over.

The Labour Party survived Mintoff’s fulminations, and the rot of disenchantment, to march ahead and fight on.

Time will tell whether or not the MLP have prevailed over the imponderables by the next general election.

But time has left us in no doubt about the quality of Mintoff’s erstwhile hazardous prophecies. The MLP has stood foursquare around Dr Sant, who has been demonised by many more people since Mintoff. Dr Sant’s diligence prevailed over Mintoff’s boisterousness. Mintoff’s hastily written obituary was, after all, a dud!

The wilder they are, the less likely will politically-loaded prophecies stand the test of history.

In a democratic environment, it is the electorate – not embittered politicians – which will deliver the hard stuff about whom future historians will write.

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