By this time, the fall-out from the last round of local council elections has settled down and the spin doctors, who worked overtime to construe their respective interpretation of the results, have exhausted their arguments.

Politicians and party policy-makers had their fill of euphoria or their moments of despondency. But life goes on, and it is the electorate that has to make the final assessment.

With roughly one third of the national electorate being called to the polling booths, local government elections assume the nature of large-scale, if costly, opinion polls, with hardly any margin of error. There is the added advantage that collective electoral preferences are writ large and are indelible.

The sophistry of politicians and the hot air of spin doctors are ephemeral, but electoral results, expressed in precise numbers, are durable and incontestable.

Irremovable fact

The most striking and irremovable fact emerging from the council election held on 12 March highlighted the continued decline of electoral support for the PN since Lawrence Gonzi assumed the party leadership, and the renaissance of the Malta Labour Party under Alfred Sant, and this in spite of a concentrated campaign to demonise the MLP Leader.

This was no dramatic, overnight, swing of opinion. It was the third, consecutive MLP electoral victory over the PN in the course of one year. The electoral result said that Dr Gonzi had lost all three consecutive contests held since he assumed the leadership of his Party. It said that the drift from the PN ranks has been consistent and is still gathering pace. It confirmed that the MLP commands an absolute majority in terms of electoral support and that it has increased its lead over the PN.

Chain reaction

Facts are more eloquent than arguments. And, for the PN, the sting of reproach is in the truth of it. There are more than two years to go before the next general election, if one goes by the book. There is no doubt that the government will do its best to put its best foot forward and improve both its image and its performance. But could it be on the cards that the past performance of this tired Dr Gonzi government, crippled as it is by local and international economic adversity, started an irresistible chain reaction, expressed in a rising tide of electoral hostility?

This is where a dividing line separates the facts from conjecture. Politicians, commentators, opinion leaders and spin doctors will, no doubt, try every ruse and trick to spoof and ensnare the electorate or to cajole it with promises of a better tomorrow. On the other hand, when the electorate begins to feel the pinch of rising taxation and higher living costs, and when ministerial inertia and the ossification of the bureaucracy compound electoral resentment, no amount of political hanky-panky will pacify or distract it.

Crux of the matter

This is the crux of the matter. The latest local election results highlight, in no unmistakable terms, the degree of pain that afflicts the electorate, and the way the electorate is reacting. It does not prescribe the remedy for the patient. But the patient has made a strong case for a change of doctor and has, moreover, indicated his desire for a change of air.

The case for a change of doctor has become irresistible with every passing budget. From the moment it was elected into office in l987, the PN government embarked on a spiralling spending spree, flying in the face of cautionary advice not to spend beyond its means. Its obsessiveness led to mounting taxation and a mountain of debt, which, in turn, has to be sustained by prohibitive debt-servicing costs and, therefore, more taxes. The result is a structural deficit that has clamped the government’s initiative.

What is even worse, the government finds itself caught in its own trap. It has been constrained by the EU to make good for its accumulated inefficiencies, and has committed itself to implement a “convergence plan” designed to tighten the fiscal screws and introduce new austerity measures.

All of this notwithstanding, the Dr Gonzi government continues to overspend and to borrow. When it gasps for air, it resorts to more taxation for its oxygen, choking the middle class and crushing families with low

earnings.

Things have come to a crunch and the workers have taken to the streets to air their protests. Rising political polarisation is not making things easier.

The resulting situation was reflected in the election results. But more is to come, as surely as night follows day – always assuming that Dr Gonzi and his motley crew will stay the course.

There will, no doubt, be dissenting views to this analysis. And they are not to be denied an airing. But it is the facts that are relevant to Malta’s survival.

Test of good governance

A government that has not passed the test of good, efficient governance and is, moreover, being given the cold shoulder by the electorate, is obviously on notice.

The mood of the sovereign electorate ought to be enough to seal the argument. But this is underpinned by independent opinion surveys and by editorial opinion of the like expressed in this newspaper (TMID 14 March) with these words: “The Nationalists must realise that they need to change. A new leadership is not enough when old methods remain. The party has lost its grip on the feelings of the people, and that section that is traditionally linked to it – the middle class does no longer identify itself in the PN.”

As it happened, on that very same morning, another local morning paper was lamenting that the PN “failed in mobilising its own people to come out and vote. By so doing, the PN shot itself in the foot – and shot down the much flaunted strategy in the process – as it has exposed itself to tough criticism, now based on harsh numerical fact, that its performance leaves a lot to be desired” and added “This is the third time running in a few months that the PN has failed at the polls. Every time, it promises to keep its ears to the ground and yet the same happens again.”

Facts are sacred. Comment is free. Before the sacred facts, comment is freely turning into mounting criticism of past Nationalist policies and in the realisation of their consequences.

For Dr Gonzi, the party leader, things have been exacerbated by growing frustration and resentment within the PN. It started with the removal of John Dalli, ousted from the Cabinet in circumstances not fully explained. Dissidence developed into a hotbed, with dirty linen being washed in public. It ended with the aberration that led to the disenfranchisement of the electorate at Marsa and Zejtun in the last round of local elections. This false move, taken by a “strategy group”, without the knowledge of the statutory directorate, but with the support of Dr Gonzi, the democratic conscience of PN stalwarts to the quick and blotted the party copybook. For that, there will have to be yet another inquest!

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