The Malta Labour Party has been in election mode ever since Alfred Sant was confirmed as the party leader soon after the 2003 electoral defeat. And therefore it is not surprising that the more the election date approaches, the more Labour understandably gears up for the big day.

We have been hearing Labour officials speak about the possibility of an election since the start of 2007. At that time, it was felt that there was a chance that Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi would have, like his predecessor at the helm of the Nationalist Party, anticipated the election by a few months and held it at the end of last year. It did not happen.

We have been reading pro-Labour newspapers and opinion writers who lean towards the Labour Party trying to push the Prime Minister into making the announcement they have been yearning for. We have heard many dates being mentioned; we have read many times that the PM is soon “to blow the whistle”.

Much to their disappointment, it has not happened but, of course, one day they will be right.

Fomenting speculation about the election is tantamount to telling the country to stop, as has happened in previous times when elections were approaching, and this is perhaps one of the intentions behind so much talk. Thankfully, this time round the country has kept on moving at a steady pace in spite of all these rumours, and this has been confirmed by retailers themselves.

Businessmen are the people who gauge the country’s momentum, and the fact that they reported a good Christmas season goes to prove that the people went on with their normal lives – as it should be. The fact that Dr Gonzi ended all speculation about a 2007 election in early November also helped in no small way.

Strangely enough, the pressure of the coming election is more on the Malta Labour Party than on the Nationalist Party. Since winning the 1976 election, which had then kept the party in government for a second straight term, the MLP has been more popular only one other time, in 1996 (in 1981, the MLP won the election with a majority of seats in Parliament in spite of a minority of votes). But then, the party was unable to finish the legislature and lost the subsequent 1998 election.

It is therefore understandable that the MLP is so thirsty to return to government. It feels that it should have had a better deal in 1996, and that it was not given the chance to accomplish its mission. Now it is asking the electorate to give it another opportunity, in the hope that it could finish the job.

Labour will however find a different Malta than the one it left in 1998.

We are now members of the European Union – a matter that the MLP was so much against, advocating a partnership concept rather than one of membership, but finally accepting the popular choice.

We are now also members of the eurozone – another matter on which the MLP was rather sceptical, urging the government to wait some more time but finally accepting that the course could not be reversed.

The country has also found its feet after a period of difficulty. In economic terms, the country is growing, foreign investment is flourishing and the employment sector is healthy.

Labour portrays itself as the party which has the fresher ideas, the party that could take Malta places, the party that wants to give the country a new beginning. But Labour should also understand that it cannot belittle the progress that has been achieved over the past years.

This is because it is on this progress that it should be planning to build if it wins the election.