It is amazing how Labour opinion writers are still obsessed with expatriates voting in the last general election

Labour have this fixation in their minds that they lost the election because ineligible Maltese voters living abroad came in their hundreds to keep Labour out of office. Just to get the picture straight: these are Maltese citizens who appear on the electoral roll but are living abroad.

The conclusions one should draw are the opposite of the ones proposed by the opposition’s inner circle: why are members of Maltese communities abroad so keen in keeping Labour out of office? That is the question I would have asked myself had I been a Labour strategist, rather than whining and complaining that my Maltese brethren living abroad thronged Malta’s polling stations to keep Labour out!

Secondly, when will Labour learn to search within its own confines for causes underlying its three successive electoral defeats, rather than attributing them to everyone and everything apart from itself? In 1981 and 1987 it was foreign interference, in 1998 it was Mintoff’s treachery, in 2003 the European factor, and now it is “the Maltese living abroad”. Even such an accomplished politician as Evarist Bartolo could not resist repeating this puerile fantasy that the Maltese abroad conspired with Air Malta and the Nationalist Party to ensure a Nationalist victory at the polls. How shortsighted to think so!

Labour’s top brass should stop inventing pretexts for their defeat such as the “power of incumbency” or the “expatriates’ vote”. They should instead have a close look at the post mortem report prepared by their own Commission analysing the party’s sixth electoral defeat in the past seven general elections.

The Labour Party’s report makes interesting reading; and I say this because it reveals a world of intrigue, even “sabotage” – a word used by the compilers of the report – which was hitherto hidden from the public eye. Indeed Labour spokesmen used to endlessly quote from the report drawn up following the defeat of the Nationalist Party at the 2004 European Parliamentary polls; but that report criticised the administration and the party for lack of communication between central office and the party faithful; what the report on Labour’s defeat found is much more sinister; a gnawing, continuing internal feud which decimated the party’s strength and its ability to win elections

The report was only written proof of what was evident prior to the March elections and is even more blatant now. What is surprising and revealing in the report is the extent to which this internal rot had reached prior to polling day; and it seems that Labour’s post electoral decision to postpone the election of party leader by at least an additional six weeks served only to bring out this internal strife even more; to the extent that one contender described the leadership campaign as poisoned from start to finish.

What with leakages of confidential information about card-carrying members and delegates, allegations of blatant partial use of Super One Television prime time in favour of one candidate, the Schulz debacle resulting in an unprecedented letter addressed to European Socialist Party chief Rasmussen by four of the five contenders, one is almost reminded of the unscrupulous feuds within the Supreme Soviet at the height of the Cold War rather than an ordinary race for party leader between contenders belonging to the same party.

And the divisions will continue; too much venom has been secreted, too much blood has been spilt, and all this goes beyond the ordinary tussles and altercations which occur in any campaign for any important political position.

These are the real reasons for Labour’s defeat.

The strong undercurrents which surfaced during the electoral campaign for party leader and the top posts in the party administration will not disappear on the morrow of Dr Joseph Muscat’s rise to power within the party structures.

He will certainly try to rally all forces behind him; but the errors he committed during the campaign and the prejudice shown in his favour by Labour’s powers-that-be will not be easily forgotten.

The way ahead for this country is to work closer together; but this presumes a united opposition determined to be loyal to its principles but also to its constitutional role; only the future will tell whether Labour’s woes are over or whether they are only about to begin.

Dr Tonio Borg is Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Affairs Minister