The House of Representatives is about to resume its business after the summer recess, and Malta’s politicians will go back to the salt mines, as it were. They will have to rev up their constituency work, and brush up their national image, knowing that they are about to reach the last lap before the next general election.

In present-day circumstances, conditions prevailing in Malta are not “normal”. The economy is in a severe predicament. When it was not shrinking, it was stalling. Malta suffered from a long bout of investment fatigue. The tourist sector has gone through a long period of turbulence. Unemployment has been steadily rising. Government finances have been weighed down for years under the burden of an unsustainable structural deficit and mounting debt.

This bleak scenario has been building up against a false background of political propaganda, calculated to conceal the real state of affairs.

Electoral reaction

Things reached a point when the kissing had to stop. The electorate began to realise that the emperor had no clothes on – and the electorate started to react.

Whereas the Nationalist Party had won 146,175 first preference votes at the 2003 general election (5l.8 per cent of the vote), its poll plummeted to 96,688 first preference votes (39.8 per cent) in the Euro-Parliamentary elections of 12 June 2004. At the two subsequent local government electoral consultations, the PN sustained other reverses.

Life has never been a static affair, the mill wheels turn forever. They turned decisively against the new Party leader, Dr Lawrence Gonzi, who has now lost all three consecutive electoral contests since taking office.

This is tantamount to a democratic, if silent, revolt of the masses.

Every reader could speculate about the true reasons for this sea change. Some may argue that the electorate wanted to distance itself from the grip of the Fenech Adami regime. Others may consider that Dr Gonzi was unequal to his promise to introduce a new style of government. Others still may take the view that an outraged electorate, conscious that it has been deceived by false promises, is out for revenge.

Stray sheep

Personal speculation apart, the Nationalist Party, having increased its voting strength with each successive election since World War Two, failed to sustain this record under the impact of the latest powerful electoral swing.

This time, it was the Nationalist Party that had to cope with the problem of stray sheep. The problem has to be addressed.

There will be many in the PN who will want to know what went wrong with the management.

Party insiders owe it to the mainstream of supporters across the island and to the electorate in general, to conduct an inquest in broad daylight.

Considering that this is far from a Little Bo Peep nursery rhyme situation, the PN leadership must look reality in the eye.

There have been far too many instances where ministers have shot themselves, and their party, in the foot. Allegations and/or accusations relating to sleaze and worse made by the opposition were not always met with the forcefulness expected by public opinion.

Perceptions

Irrespective of whether or not there was substance in these charges, perceptions took shape, and the odour of corruption, at times, polluted the environment.

The National Party managers plainly under-estimated Alfred Sant’s impact and his ability to command the loyalty of his party. On the part of some of the topmost PN managers, there was the semblance of an arrogant assumption that Alfred Sant was treading water by projecting a paper image, belied by a dark past, and suggesting an ominous future.

These managers – aided and abetted by some misguided columnists – thought they were credible. It has turned out that they were not. This betrays bad management by the managers, and poor judgment by the columnists.

When the ongoing debate is exhausted, the bottom line will be dictated by the free electorate, and not by the so-called political strategists or their lunga manus in the media.

Over and over again, the electorate has been bamboozled with promises of an “early spring” and a “mini-boom”, of bringing government finances under control, and of turning around the economy “in the right direction”. Instead, the sovereign electorate has been frog-marched, over-taxed and, in the case of the local elections at Marsa and Zejtun, even deprived of its right of access to the polling booths.

Costly mistakes

These mistakes were fundamentally wrong and politically costly.

They compounded the incompetence that often approximated a state of paralysis, and made it next to impossible for Dr Gonzi to assert himself, on the strength of the Fenech Adami imprimatur, rather than by the process of a popular democratic election.

The turn of events, particularly during the past year, has proved that the Maltese electorate has matured. It is sensitive to the demands of democracy and capable of responding to its instincts, whether for reasons of protest or conviction.

The main political parties are likely to be aware of this positive development and would be well advised to nurse their constituencies.

MPs will be under increasing pressure to keep in touch with the grassroots, and the respective party managers will be equally pressed to keep the machinery that links headquarters with constituency organisations well oiled and working.

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