There are Nationalists and Nationalists…. And Nation-

alists!

The majority are level-headed people who simply have a different point of view. Many of those I know are respectable people on whom the Labour fear factor and a number of its former shortcomings might have impacted negatively in the past.

Others are genuine Natio-nalists out of conviction.

Some others are Nationalists by want of a better right-wing alternative, in view of their genuinely and deep-rooted conservative ideas and orientation.

Then there are others who, although brought up in the traditional mould as many Labourites have done, are now crying out for change.

There are also Nationalists who feel left out of the loop since “the cake” was gobbled up by the same dynastic families and clans and the inner circles of the echelons of power.

Recently in Msida I met a Sicilian married to a Maltese who is working here with all the relative permits in order. He told me to my amazement “This might come as a surprise to you from someone from Sicily, but in Malta avete un governo padre padrone.” I know Sicily has many positive attributes, but to hear such a comment from a Sicilian who has been living in Malta for over six years, I must admit that I was taken aback and left lost for words.

When visiting areas like Kappara there were a number of families that were the first to point out that reshuffles or new blood will not make any difference to a new Gonzi administration. Since their biggest concern is that the bug of arrogance has spread so much and so widely across the PN network that those most responsible for such misdeeds are the ones most likely to be re-elected as MPs in spite of covert attempts to push elements of new blood in the party out of despair. Others expressed the fear that if Gonzi’s so-called team makes it to the helm again, there is only one thing that is almost guaranteed. That the overflowing arrogance can only get worse.

Others played puns on the Sarkozy cloned slogan flimkien kollox hu possibbli by adding ghall-hbieb tal-hbieb!

I can live comfortably with all those Nationalists that fall in the above categories, but although I respect everyone’s opinion including the latter, the ones that I feel that are simply politically deceitful are:

a) Those opinion makers who claim to be independent and are nothing but part of the well-oiled PN propaganda machine;

b) The same independent writers who are known to have been busy scripting PN ads in the English language newspapers;

c) Those who now are in an electoral frenzy are doing their best to make us forget that only a few years ago they were the same lot who used to find Gonzi ineffective, who thought ministers like Jesmond Mugliett must go and who considered deputy PM Tonio Borg to be an ultra conservative and fundamentalist compared to their self-professed “liberal” views.

d) Those who have claimed for years in the printed media that Labourites are hamalli and who should by now know better to avoid falling into certain pitfalls!

I have nothing against debates such as those held recently at University so long as they are not politically hijacked, and are conducted in a lively manner and not turned into a rent a mob event with the evident blessing of the PN. Where one could literally sense the venom in the air among a selected few. No wonder that a leading columnist claimed that this was the political event of the campaign. NET TV gave the game away by choosing to screen the whole discussion.

I found all this worrying, even more so when bearing in mind that the absolute majority of University students are level-headed persons rather than political fanatics of the first order. The sins of the past, which I deplore, are no excuse for the intolerance shown when we happen to be living in the information age of civil debate. On the same issue I deplore and condemn without any reservation any bomb threats that might have been made to those who I would have expected to have behaved differently.

The PM’s deliberate reluctance to condemn the “debate” personal attacks on Alfred Sant, even when he was discussing his own serious operation and government’s impotence in tackling the breast screening issue, is the ultimate in bad taste.

One cannot try to sit on the fence politically by first claiming to be neutral and then coming out with article comments almost identical to a PN billboard that were released on the same day, or else to pave the way for a turbulent and disruptive debate at University by suggesting what kind of provocative questions should be asked to the Labour leader – on the eve of the debate proper. This event must have worked wonders with small pockets of fanatics in the Nationalist camp but it was a very bad PR exercise among those disillusioned PN voters that Lawrence Gonzi is trying to woo through carefully organised meetings, where dissenting Nationalists are usually targeted alongside those who have refused to renew their party membership as well as those who have deliberately refused to vote during the local council elections over past years.

Labour meanwhile is committed not to lose its calm. To keep on pushing its programme forward. To continue setting the agenda in its last few days in opposition.

The main problem with the Nationalists is that it is now too late for their strategists to go back to the drawing board. And by now even Malta watchers and diplomats have realised that!

In the United States they call it “panic-button time”.

This is why gloves are off to prevent Alfred Sant from assuming power.

e-mail: [email protected]

Leo Brincat is opposition spokesman for

foreign affairs and IT