The main issues are already being polished for solemn presentation to the electorate. These will have to do with Malta’s economic survival.

An unwritten rule of politics is that, as the economy goes, so does everything else. When things are bad, the electorate is prone to opt for change. When the opposite is the case, the electorate thinks twice before dispensing with the devil it has come to know. After all, the electorate had experience of other devils in the past, and some were as devilish as they come.

In this sense, the true significance of the next election lies in the murky depths of the politics of yesteryear.

Electoral distress

There will be a sizeable part of the electorate which will be voting for the first or, at best, for the second time. Electors in this category may not be deterred by memories of the past – they are more likely to be guided by their interests in the here-and-now and in the future.

The elder generation tends to be inclined to navigate by the compass of its past experience when things were “normal”. This time, they are not normal be any means. It is not so much that the economy is in distress. The situation is such that it is they themselves who are under stress. The certainties, which many of them confront, have to do with fast-rising taxation and living costs, and the immediate prospect of even more austerity.

At a time like this, old political affinities are questioned and reassessed. Resentment may lead to defections. Dissatisfaction can conceivably snowball, unless it is handled with tact, and contained by judicious concessions. If such concessions are assessed as spectacular u-turns, they could well transform the original dissatisfaction into an avalanche.

That is why there are no written laws of politics for situations like this – and there is only the general, unwritten, rule, spelled out in the second paragraph of this piece.

Electoral survival instinct

At a time like this, the political parties and their spin doctors could argue about the state of the economy until the cows come home. The electorate, who is feeling the pinch, is not interested in arguments and counter-arguments. It wants relief from its pains and it wants to survive.

This is the point when circumstances are ripe for change. Doctors who systematically and consistently make the wrong diagnosis cannot expect the confidence of their patients, particularly if the latter have already borne the brunt of the doctors’ past mistakes.

All the above is theory. Reality is about to manifest itself as budgetary policies begin to bite the sorely-tried taxpayer in line with the Convergence Programme, drawn up by Dr Lawrence Gonzi, at the bidding of the EU.

That programme lays down imperatives to make up for the excesses of the past money no problem years. The European Union does not lay down rules as to how the damage sustained by the Maltese economy is to be repaired. It is the Gonzi government that decided who should bear the brunt for its past excesses – and it has opted to tax the middle-class and taxpayers in the lower income brackets, who are expected to carry the burden.

Electoral aspirations

This decision contains the seeds of what might turn out to be a “revolt of the masses”, for want of a better term.

The bulk of the electorate believes that the burden should be borne by taxpayers in proportion to their strength. Electors believe that the government should have led by example, and started to practice what it preaches, by trimming its expenditure and opting for a modicum of austerity in the public sector. Even more urgently, they believe that the government should have first turned on tax-evaders, and exercised due diligence by collecting outstanding revenue arrears, that have been allowed to run into hundreds of millions of liri.

Whether this was a manifestation of indolence or outright incompetence is beside the point.

It is the end-result that may yet turn the scales.

The electorate finds itself wading in a rising tide of resentment – particularly because there seems to be no end to the pain of more taxation and austerity.

It is as natural as it is just for the common citizen to expect relief from pain. If relief is not forthcoming, it is just as natural for the common citizen to take his destiny in his own hands and to reach for other remedies.

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