The two major political parties have put a stop to political activities until 7 January – the day Parliament resumes after the Christmas season. The Nationalist Party is doing this for the ninth year in a row, stopping all activities last Saturday, and the Malta Labour Party will follow suit as from tomorrow.

Publicly, the two parties will not make their voices heard over the next few days, allowing the Maltese people to celebrate Christmas and the New Year with their families in political silence. But, privately, the party machines will not be stopping except perhaps for Christmas and the New Year, as the two gear up to face the electorate in an election planned for the first half of the year, possibly in the first quarter.

After counting all the liri they collected in their respective fund-raising campaign last week – who says that the country is poor, considering that between them the PN and the MLP collected more than Lm650,000 during the past year? – they are now concentrating on their last efforts before they face the people for judgment.

It is just an apparent calm before the run-up actually begins, or rather resumes, considering that speculation about the election has been ongoing for quite some time now. Both parties have in fact been in election mode for a number of weeks.

The Labour Party has been in full swing for months on end; some say that the MLP’s election campaign started soon after Alfred Sant was confirmed as Opposition Leader just after the 2003 election. The PN took the opportunity of the Independence Day celebrations in September, followed up by the budget presented in early October, to launch their own campaign.

There was also a time when a December election seemed possible, but once the Prime Minister spoke up in Parliament to dispel all rumours and state that the election will be held in 2008, the talk has subsided.

No doubt, the two parties are working on their election manifesto, which will be presented as soon as Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi blows the whistle. As such, there will be few surprises, as both the PN and the MLP have already made their intentions clear.

The PN has repeatedly spoken about its vision for the country between now and 2015, based on six targets the Nationalists want to reach within the next eight years. The MLP, for its part, has presented its own “plan for a new beginning”, which is a collection of the documents that the party approved over the years and which will form the foundations for its election manifesto.

Little, if anything, will change because the two parties have already been comprehensive in their plans and the way they have made them public. What now remains is that final push.

It is likely that the election will be a close affair, and therefore the two parties must be very careful in the way they project themselves from now on. The tiniest mistake could be costly at this stage.

What is also important for them to keep in mind is that the election will be decided by the so-called floating voters, or as this newspaper described them some time ago “The purple party”. These are people who have no political allegiance, but vote depending on the circumstances.

It has often been said that political parties cater too much for their diehard supporters, giving little attention to those who are “undecided”.

Now is the time for both of them to persuade these people. The party that is most convincing will win the election.