With just two days to go until Malta’s political parties put their proposals and track records to the ultimate test on Saturday, this morning party leaders will be putting the final polish on their messages for the electorate.

Malta tomorrow enters into a period of reflection following five weeks of heavy electoral campaigning. No media outlets will be reporting anything with even the slightest hint of politics on Friday or Election Day Saturday.

Yesterday, in fact, was the printed media’s last day of campaign reporting (and published today), while television, internet and radio outlets will continue to report up to midnight tonight.

Since the election was announced on 4 February, Malta’s two main political parties – the Nationalist Party and the Malta Labour Party – have gone head-to-head and both have run aggressive campaigns, one seemingly based on allegations of government corruption over the last four years, and another on the positive track record achieved over the last legislature.

The MLP will be holding two mass meetings today – one in Xewkija, Gozo and another in Pembroke. The PN, meanwhile, will hold its final mass meeting today at the Granaries, Floriana.

The campaigns will be wrapped up with a televised political debate between Nationalist Party leader Lawrence Gonzi and Malta Labour Party leader Alfred Sant, to be broadcast on Television Malta at 20.30.

News reports are to resume once again on Sunday morning, while vote counting is to begin at noon at the new counting hall at the former Naxxar trade fair grounds.

An official result is expected at some point in the evening.

Polls gauging voter sentiment over the five-week campaign have been a dime a dozen, but the only poll that really matters will be that taken on Saturday when the electorate gives its verdict to Malta’s total of 260 candidates for 13 electoral districts – including representatives of the PN, the MLP, Alternattiva Demokratika, Azzjoni Nazzjonali, the Alpha Party and independent candidates.

What the current electoral campaign lacks is a single central issue under the microscope – after the 2003 election featured the EU question, the 1998 election the failed 1996 Labour government, the 1996 election the introduction of value added tax.

The 2008 campaign, however, lacks a that one central overriding issue, which perhaps has left the electorate more confused than it has been in other recent campaigns.

For its part, the MLP appears to have waged the crux of its campaign on the issue of corruption, pledging a “zero tolerance” approach if elected to power. It has also promised to halve the electricity surcharge within a week of assuming office.

While the measure had originally seemed to exclude businesses, the MLP later announced it would apply the measure to businesses as well, which would be reimbursed for half their surcharge payments by means of a tax credit.

Other mainstays of the MLP campaign have included pledges to remove value added tax on educational items and the reopening of Malta’s EU accession agreement so as to renegotiate agreements of the dockyards, agriculture and fisheries.

The reception class proposal, which would see the creation of an extra year of formative schooling in between kindergarten and primary school, was toned down by the MLP as the campaign progressed after the Malta Union of Teachers had expressed its reservations while the government insistently described it as a repeater class.

Malta’s economic growth rate, the MLP said, would be increased to between four and six per cent under a Labour administration, while Eurostat has already placed Malta’s growth rate at 4.3 per cent, and it has also drafted a regional development plan encompassing the Grand Harbour and Bugibba areas, as well as the south of Malta.

The incumbent Nationalist Party, meanwhile, focused on both its track record and its electoral proposals – aimed at building on the work accomplished over the last four years.

It started off the first week of campaigning by announcing an economic stimulus package including a hefty revision of income tax levels and incentives for women and small businesses, as well as the goal of abolishing the national deficit and bringing Malta’s public finances into surplus by 2010.

In the second week, Dr Gonzi announced he would be taking a full reform of the Malta Environment and Planning Authority under his wing and that the environment would be at the top of a future PN-led government, with e300 million of Malta’s e855 in EU funding going toward the area. The PN has also proposed turning Gozo into an eco-island – self-sufficient in its energy use and waste treatment, what Dr Gonzi describes as one of the PN’s “most ambitious” proposals.

In the third week, the PN turned its electoral thrust to health care, where primary care is being placed in focus through the Pharmacy of Your Choice system, and creating greater synergies with Malta’s general practitioners.

Job creation and education, two issues that are closely intertwined, have also played central roles in the PN’s campaign. The PN government, the party has repeatedly stated, has created 5,000 jobs per year, which is enough to cater for graduates and other new entrants into the workforce.

In the campaign’s last week, the PN turned to detailing what it perceives as the main differences between the parties – one of substance and concrete proposals, as against, it says, one that is running no more than a negative smear campaign.

But what neither major party has mentioned to date – issues conspicuous by their absence from the campaign – were the thorny issues of hunting, abortion, divorce and irregular migration – issues that have, however, been touched upon by Malta’s smaller parties, apparently capitalising on the absence of attention paid by the larger parties.