In 2003, the question of whether to join the EU or not was the main issue facing the Maltese electorate.

It was an issue about which the two parties split into two very contrasting camps. There was no need for them to do anything like that, but that seems to be the rule where national politics come into play.

Following the referendum and the election, Labour immediately accepted EU membership and this, along with other controversies, immediately fuelled the legend that had Labour accepted EU membership before the referendum, or even just after the referendum, it could have made it to government.

Or maybe not. The EU was THE issue, but around that single issue was created a wide coalition that ranged all the way from the PN to Alternattiva and even into the Labour fold itself.

Yet, such are Maltese politics, no one issue was considered to be over-riding and in the end the PN pulled out all the stops to ensure it, and it alone, would be the ultimate beneficiary of the election.

The day after the referendum results, at a press conference in Castille, Prime Minister Eddie Fenech Adami was asked if he would consider an alliance with Alternattiva to ensure that the referendum result was confirmed in the election.

At that point, possibly because of the scenes the previous day, when Labour claimed victory at the referendum and crowds of partisan supporters on both sides of the fence crossed each other at every cross-road, Dr Fenech Adami said, Yes, he would consider such an alliance.

Over the next few days, people waited for talks to be held and for a statement to be made. Instead, there was silence, total silence. It later transpired that, following that statement by Dr Fenech Adami, which had not been cleared with the party beforehand, the PN’s phone lines were reportedly jammed by the party’s core supporters, mainly priests and religious but even many lay people, warning the party away from any alliance with AD and all that it was perceived, rightly or wrongly, as supporting.

Even so, nothing is ever left to chance in a Maltese election and a bludgeon is used where a rapier would do. On the very eve of the election, Dr Fenech Adami used some very specious arguments to try and persuade waverers that a vote for AD would mean a vote for Labour. There was no time to correct that remark, and also perhaps no time for the remark to sink in. This was the same strategy used in the notorious last television confrontation between Dr Fenech Adami and Dr Sant, at which the claim that Dr Sant had blocked access to university for Dr Fenech Adami’s sons was made – and subsequently found to be untrue.

All this shows that when things come down to the line, nothing is ever enough and good means and bad means are all thrown in, as anything goes.

This time around, there is no over-riding issue, such as the EU was last time. There is no alliance either, since if an electoral alliance was found to be impossible then, it will surely be even more so now. On the contrary, one reading of the current PN position is that the party has continued to revert back to its original historical humus. It has quite clearly left behind any dalliance with progressive thought and liberal attitudes that, in this election, find themselves on so many issues quite orphaned and swept aside. On the social scale, however, one can safely say that the PN has now broken the mould of it being the party of the A-Bs, the English-speaking side of the social ladder. Any political activity by any of the two main parties would be indistinguishable as to its social composition, were it not for the colour of the flags.

The question is thus one and the same: come election day, will there be a last minute fudge by the PN, or will it bravely go to the country with what it is, what it stands for, what it amounts to?

There are many ways to approach an election but a mature electorate should refuse to be scared or panicked or tricked to get the desirable result. For after all, one very serious cause of the current disenchantment with the current government, apart from the long list of its errors and mistakes, could well owe its source to the trick and treat attitude of those days in April 2003.