The coming election could make or break the Malta Labour Party.

By the time the people go to the polls, the MLP will have been in opposition for a total of 20 years, except for a brief 22 months in office between October 1996 and September 1998.

That was a short term for Dr Alfred Sant’s government, as the one-seat majority obtained was not strong enough to keep it in power for the whole legislature, and following a hot summer of controversy, the then Prime Minister had to call an early election that the MLP lost.

We will not go into the merits of what led to the MLP’s downfall at the time, although it must be said that the minimum parliamentary majority had a big bearing on its collapse. The party knows, however, that it made several mistakes that ultimately led it to lose the popular support it had gained less than two years before. It has to learn from the errors committed if it is to be re-elected to government.

The MLP still retains a sizeable hardcore base that will always vote Labour, no matter what happens. These people will continue to support the MLP through thick and thin, but their number is not enough to give the party the majority it needs to win the election.

There is a growing sector of the population that no longer always votes one way or the other, irrespective of what the parties do. The so-called “floating voters” switch from one side to the other, depending on policies and their implementation, while others prefer either to give their preference to Alternattiva Demokratika, because they can never bring themselves to vote for the “other” party, or else not vote at all.

And it is this sector that the MLP must target to win the election. The MLP must be perceived to be an alternative government, one that can do better than the current incumbent, to be able to win these voters over.

Is the MLP doing enough to attract the floating voters?

Well, not really.

The party is portraying itself as having changed over the past years. It has been preparing for the election ever since it lost the last one, drawing up documents which, it says, will form the basis of its electoral programme. It continues to attack the Nationalist administration, pointing fingers at misdemeanours and repeatedly saying that the country needs a breath of fresh air.

But has the party really changed? Are the documents that are being prepared and discussed the real solution to the country’s problems? Would a Labour government be better?

Or will Labour win by default, just because the Nationalists have been there for too long and the country needs a different government?

The problem with Labour is that it still has to convince people – in particular those who vote without blinkers – that it will run the country in a more efficient way than the Nationalists are doing.

The MLP is still a party that caters for the diehard, for those who will vote for it anyway. The tactics that the MLP has been using during all this time in opposition have not changed, and this could be the party’s downfall.

The MLP cannot afford to lose the next election, having lost four of the last five national polls, apart from the referendum for European Union membership. Its more recent victories in the European Parliament election and in local council elections were no “real” tests, although they served to boost its confidence.

The party – especially the leadership – knows that its future largely depends on the outcome of the general election. It is so eager to win it that on occasions it commits the same errors that in the past have backfired.