No doubt the nationalist party and its media machine are again in high gear to portray false realities and invent political gimmicks meant to bolster the party’s faltering electoral strategies. They are indeed resorting to the same malicious tissue of lies that pervaded their campaign before the European referendum and the last general elections, aided and abetted by some sections of the friendly independent press renown for their intimate love affair with the nationalist party.

You will not have already forgotten the former Prime Minister’s blatant lie, aired on national TV, hours before the last general election, about his son’s chances of joining the law course, in the eighties, being killed off by the University’s selection board because of Dr Sant’s meddling. Dr Sant could not, of course, issue a statement the following day to make a formal denial, as no political discourse is, by law, allowed on the day before the general elections are held. And although Dr Sant did make his point at the last Labour Party mass meeting at the granaries, immediately after the recorded TV debate, his defense could not be reported on the media the following day for the same reasons.

It was a meticulously crafted lie meant to bedevil the Leader of the Opposition. The former Prime Minister could take full advantage of prime time television, viewed by tens of thousands of voters, with its instantaneous hypnotic effect, while Dr Sant had not the time and the opportunity to repel the malice. The infamous “Terinu” was disturbed in his grave.

Even “finances were on a sound footing” previous to the last general election, but then we were made to pay taxes through our noses in the four long years that followed. And it had to be a “new spring” that would usher in the aftermath of the 2003 elections but, with the nationalist party back in power, it turned out to be a long miserable winter with torrential economic depression and sleaze blizzards.

Unfortunately the nationalist party recognizes the strategic and political value of the lie. It has an almost genetic disposition for it. And there are no compromises. When their media machine attacks it does so with personalized precision. They never cared two hoots when, for instance, they portrayed Dr Sant as a drunkard involved in a traffic accident in Dingli or when they flashed posters of him all over the Islands catching his eyes in quasi-demonic effect.

Today’s lies are nothing different. But they are destined to increase in their intensity as the elections approach. The nationalist party feels that, judging by the government’s dismal performance in this legislature, its ministerial blunders, the rampant institutionalised corruption and the consistently hostile mood of the electorate in its regard, there is a real probabality, this time, that it will lose.

It was sheer political opportunism, for instance, that prompted the incumbent Prime Minister to declare that “opposition members,” sent him emails to congratulate him on the last budget. People understood what they were meant to understand, that some opposition MPs (and that includes me) congratulated the Prime Minister in writing. What cheek!

The nationalist propaganda machine then went on to allege that the MLP did not keep its promise to donate monies towards the rehabililitation of the Foresta 2000 project that was previously vandalised. That same day the allegation was made on “Il-Mument” Dr Sant proudly presented the cashed cheques of the Labour Party’s donations at a Sunday meeting.

Again the nationalist party alleged that the Labour Party tried to stop the transmission of a Bondiplus programme a week ago for political reasons. It turned out to be another blatant lie measured to discredit the opposition. How many more lies, fabricated inside the nationalist party headquarters, are lining up for diffusion is anyone’s guess.

For want of space I will stop here today. There is so much more to serve as grist for my mill that I can take up another column or two with recorded instances of nationalist deceit. This time round, however, the strategy is destined to fail as more and more people have understood that politics is about how they really feel and not about what they are told to feel.

(Dr Gulia is the Opposition’s Shadow Minister on Home Affairs)