The day of reckoning is fast approaching.

Each political party will now examine its past record and assess whether its performance was up to the mark in terms of strategy, tactics, and delivery. This is of principal concern of each party and its respective leadership.

But an electoral campaign does not merely involve party political machines. It calls for the mobilisation of support across the length and breadth of the electorate, and relies on the goodwill and sympathy of electors who are not party members.

In other words, although parties are needed to mobilise the electorate, it is the electorate that wields voting power. The electorate does so as it looks through the prism of its interests and its own experience.

This being so, it is as idle as it is irrelevant for politicians or media columnists to sit in judgment over the sovereign electorate as it prepares to deliberate and to deliver its verdict.

To insinuate that the electorate may err if it votes one way or the other is politically counter-productive.

Seasoned politicians and journalists – let alone those with a modicum of common sense – must be prepared to accept yet another reality, namely that, in politics, there is no gratitude.

Arguments for change

There is plenty to deliberate about if one looks at the contemporary Maltese scene from the detached standpoint of a “floating voter”.

There are very many reasons why the arguments for change militate forcefully in an environment where the economy has been long enough in stagnation, where the ruling administration fell woefully short of its promise, and where perceptions about future prospects are gloomy.

Corruption, real or perceived, has cast a dark shadow over the Maltese political scene. Clearly and unmistakably, it is fast becoming the most tangible single factor that influences electoral sentiments on both sides of the political divide.

Accusations and allegations illuminate the political skies on a daily basis. The pyrotechnics make their indelible impression on the electorate which is stupefied by revelations about associations between criminals and political elements, persistent lack of accountability on the part of certain politicians in office, the emergence of powerful business barons with political links and so on.

This is not to say that all the allegations and the charges are true. True or not, no systematic independent and transparent investigations are held to dispel suspicions.

Art of the possible

Although the ruling party may have had every justification in sticking to its principles, and to operate on what it considered as a high moral plane, there could be no justification for ignoring the golden rule that “Politics is the Art of the Possible”.

An army commander who allows his ranks to move far ahead of his support troops risks the successful outcome of the battle. In like manner, a political leadership that imposes a forced march on the electorate risks mutiny at worst and, at best, the possibility of stragglers incapable of keeping pace with the main body of supporters.

The nearer we approach the moment of truth, the more crucial is the issue of morale among the troops. For this reason, a policy that relies on the inevitability of gradualness is safer than one that runs the risk of upsetting the apple cart. A policy of calculated caution is now even more advisable because it is becoming increasingly clear that the floating vote is making its presence felt and coming into the open.

Floating voters are, at the same time, people who rely on their enlightened judgment and whose choices are coloured by their experience.

The immediate past has proved that young age in politics is not necessarily a substitute for experience, and that the free electorate is not fooled by propaganda when it comes to extending or withdrawing its support from politicians who formerly distinguished themselves by their arrogance or high-handedness.

In any case, it is the electorate that will wield the whip hand – which is one more reason why the electorate should be treated with utmost respect in the vital months ahead.

[email protected]