What is a mummy? No, not the one who gives you life, the one who feeds you, protects you and squanders money on all the things her child fancies.

There is another form of “mummy”. A mummy is a dead person who has been preserved indefinitely by embalming methods. Actually, the art of mummification was started by the Egyptians perhaps as early as 4,000 BC.

Royal mummies that have remained preserved over the centuries include those of Thutose III, Amenhotep II, Seti I, Ramses II and, the most popular of all, Tutankhamen.

Why on earth are you writing about mummies today, Val, haven’t you got anything better to do – like analysing who gave you a number one vote in the local councils elections last Saturday?

The reason is simple. Just before the local council elections, Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi called the Labour Party “mummies”. According to him, the Labour Party are a group of mummies all rolled into one giant mummy that supercedes any great form of mummification invented by the Egyptians.

Now, one must remember that Dr Gonzi had suffered two electoral defeats in less than a year. His first blow was the loss of the majority in the local council elections, his second blow was only presenting two Nationalists in the European Parliament.

Now comes the cherry on the cake. The crushing win for the MLP mummies. Those mummies who obtained a 53.18 per cent victory over the PN’s poor showing of 44.06 per cent. No doubt, Lawrence Gonzi’s choice of words to describe the Labour Party made him deserve the massive electoral defeat.

I truly wonder if anyone out there really believes that the residents in the 21 localities all over Malta actually voted for their locality or as a vote of no confidence in the present Prime Minister. I truly wonder yet again if the residents, raging mad at the way the Nationalist Party denied the right to vote to 13,000 inhabitants of Marsa and Zejtun, were so eager to put Gonzi in his place that they ran in droves to vote.

That is why Dr Gonzi shot himself in the foot. That is why, probably for the first time in history, the mummies talked. To add insult to injury, in his first reaction to the polls, Dr Gonzi admitted he was not surprised at this massive defeat. Maybe it’s my poor head but how come we are called “mummies” when he knew those “mummies” were going to turn up trumps at the local council elections?

I think that if ever someone planned their own fall from grace, the government we have running the country takes the biscuit. Those “well-meaning” Nationalists who say to all and sundry that as long as Dr Alfred Sant is the leader of the Labour Party, the MLP will never win an election again, should look at their own back yard.

Three electoral defeats in a year is not something to smile about. The “mummies” have spoken and they mean business.

I take this opportunity to say a big thank you to all those Valletta residents who gave me their first preference vote from a list of five candidates. May 12 March be remembered as the day the “mummies” talked.

Valerie Borg

VALLETTA