Our Sunday papers have taken to carrying out regular surveys on the fortunes of our political parties. How independent is the analysis, how reliable are these surveys as indicators of current voting trends and, most important of all, what effect, if any, are they actually having on how our parties behave?

Two Sundays ago, for example, Malta Today featured their most recent update on who is the most popular, or the least unpopular, minister. When you consider that ministers are voted in, like any ordinary MP from one electoral district – the fascination for a national poll beats me. It matters not one jot what Labour voters think of Nationalist ministers. And, when you think about it, it matters even less what voters outside a minister’s district think of that minister. At the end of the day, if enough Slimizi like Francis Zammit Dimech, or enough Siggiewi residents like Louis Galea get votes, the Nationalists will stay in power, otherwise they won’t.

So why is this newspaper not polling voters’ sentiments in the district concerned? That would be way more fascinating and revealing, and I am surprised that a paper like Malta Today, which usually puts readers first, hasn’t yet done that kind of survey?

Six months ago, Francis Zammit Dimech was one of their favourite whipping boys, yet loyalty to him in his own district held fast because he is, like many of his Labour counterparts in the South, an excellent constituency MP.

The same can be said of Giovanna Debono, whose picture was displayed on the front page as one of the losers, while the heading praised Austin Gatt as one of the winners. Yet from the text itself it was clear that, as she always manages to do at voting time, Giovanna is the minister who polls the second highest number of votes after the Prime Minister, a testimony to her excellent work as a constituency MP, something even her harshest critics simply cannot deny.

And as many do not read more than the heading or the first few paragraphs, Malta Today again managed to paint some ministers in a better light, depending on their own prejudices, but surely not as borne out by the evidence from this latest poll.

In fact, Giovanna’s approval rate is among the highest among Nationalist voters, and only two per cent behind the PM, who is perhaps the only one we vote for nationally, at least psychologically.

Everyone who knows her and her work, and doesn’t have a personal grudge or agenda or just plain jealousy, knows she soars above the rest in terms of her hard work, astuteness and plain niceness to all concerned. On the day, our elections are quite presidential, and the Maltese will come and vote for the party led by Alfred Sant or the party led by Lawrence Gonzi. In Gozo’s case, the minister is also viewed presidentially as the representative of Gozitans, which actually is as it should be. We are, after all, Maltese and Gozitans, and not really all Maltese, something that came home to me when I was reading the latest excellent issue of Patrimonju’s Treasures of Malta, where an article by Godwin Vella highlights how different the Gozitan experience has been from ours?

Gozo has basically been pillaged far more often, and for longer, because its defence systems were not as good as Malta’s and in 1551 Gozo’s entire population of 6,000 was dragged into slavery and “The island’s population required a whole century to reach again the level of 1551”. This is something we should perhaps all bear in mind when we consider the different personality of the Gozitans and their unique psyche.

And going back to another part Gozitan, why are sections of the supposedly more independent press always so hell-bent on looking at the good in some, and the less good in others? The admiration of Malta Today for Austin Gatt has always been quite obvious. On the front page, we read that Austin Gatt has been unscathed by “criticism that land earmarked for real estate will be handed to the Dubai investors at a very cheap price.”

Well, that is certainly one way of interpreting Austin Gatt’s slight rise in popularity, but it is hardly profound, and when you consider how often he hits our 8 o’clock News, when you consider how he has been almost allowed to take all the credit for SmartCity and not the PM, his slight rise in popularity is understandable. At the end of the day, if all this Smart stuff happens, it will be a tremendous coup for Malta, and a tribute to all those whose energies have made it happen.

But John Major lost an election when everything was booming. Tony Blair managed to take the cream from the years of hard slog and Thatcherism. Is the same about to happen to Labour, who will undoubtedly benefit from the hundreds of millions in euros that this government has got out of Brussels? It is too early to tell, although it does seem very difficult for any party to stay in office for longer than three consecutive terms, (besides the long spell before the Nationalists had in office?) and that will probably be the decider in the next election. Who has time on his side? Now, which newspaper surveys are studying that?

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