The electorate faces an election next week quite unlike any other it has seen before, with Malta factoring into a far larger spectrum of hundreds of millions voters, with a whole new range of issues as fodder and with an ideal opportunity to raise the country’s level of political discourse.

Yes, there was a European Parliamentary election five years ago – but the area at the time was very much uncharted territory.

This time around, the electorate knows much more. At least five of the candidates and two of the parties contesting the election now have a track record they can be judged on and the electorate is supposedly now much better informed about what the institution actually stands for and what it can accomplish for Malta.

The European Parliamentary electoral campaign had presented Malta’s political parties with a golden opportunity to strike a different chord, to elevate the national political debate to a whole new, European level. But Malta’s political parties have failed to rise to the challenge, and have become mired once again in petty, partisan politics entrenched as they are in a host of issues that have very little, if anything at all, to do with the European Parliament.

The parties’ smear campaigns do the electorate no favours, nor do they contribute toward maturing the electorate by focusing on the wider breadth of European politics and issues.

As is generally the case, the campaigns could very well be expected to be turned up quite a few notches in the coming week in the final stretch before the period of silence, itself an arguably outdated concept, preceding polling day.

This, it must be stressed, is not a national election and, as such, there should be very little reason for the leaders of the two main political parties to have entered the fray to the extent that they have.

What the electorate needs to see is more of the actual candidates, and less of the party leaders. One television programme last Friday lived up to the role in good form by featuring each and every MEP candidate and giving them a national stage.

What, after all, as the Opposition claims in one of its billboard campaigns, does the Prime Minister having ‘lost control’ have to do with the European Parliament or, for that matter, the ‘shock’ electricity prices – a purely national issue that Malta’s MEPs have very little sway over.

For that matter, what does the Nationalists’ trumpeted claim that the government has saved 2,000 jobs have to do with the European Parliament? It is not as though the government’s recent bailouts had required any sort of EU approval – a point stressed time and time again by the government – let alone EP approval.

Using a popular Maltese DJ, as reported in today’s issue, for a party’s own ends is deplorable, much the same as when a Maltese footballer was similarly and unwittingly used as a political prop in the lead up to last year’s general election.

Moreover, the Nationalists’ demonising of PL MEPs for, as is being claimed, voting to house ‘terrorists’ from Guantanamo Bay in Malta is both incredulous and despicable. The intricacies of the vote itself need to be looked into more thoroughly, and a PL MEP has invited anyone to debate the issue with him at any time – definitely a positive idea.

Both of the main parties, despite their vociferous claims to the contrary, have used the migration issue as a political football in their advertising campaigns – a shameful twist on what is essentially a deeply concerning humanitarian issue, but one that in Malta has become electoral ammunition.

This election is a European election. If Europe, by far Malta’s main trading partner, does well, so does Malta and if Europe fares poorly, so does Malta – a fact brought to painful light by the persisting recession.

The countries’ economy and coffers are in the state they are in simply because Europeans are for the most part reticent about taking holidays, or buying the types of high-end consumer goods that many of Malta’s factories produce components for, when their very livelihoods are at stake.

What the country needs at the European Parliament is a Team Malta, a unified force to be reckoned with – pulling, as much as possible, the same rope and aiming for the same goals. But if the campaign so far is anything to go by, that would appear to be a pipe dream.

What the electorate needs to hear more about, rather than the barrage of unrelated parochial issues, is what the wider EPP, PSE, Green and other European political groupings stand for – considering that horses are often traded behind the scenes at the European Parliament and that Maltese MEPs can often strike deals with their European party counterparts.

Local issues of course have a place in the campaign, but only to a certain extent. And these should be limited to those that over which the European Parliament could hold some sort of sway.

And with the PN still licking its wounds from its defeat at the MEP polls the last time around, just months after cementing Malta’s EU membership through a hard-fought referendum and a following general election, and the PL desperate for an electoral victory after having failed in the last general election, both parties are going for broke this time around.

But whatever this last week of campaigning holds in store, one thing is for certain – the tempo is set to increase significantly.

Between a dock and a hard place

The government has found itself in an exceedingly difficult situation. It has, after years of attempts, finally placed itself in a position to sell the financially cumbersome shipyards.

But after years of effort, controversy and after having finally managed to reduce the shipyards’ workforce to a mere 50 employees or so, it hasn’t found a buyer willing to cough up a satisfactory bid.

The government has now gone back to the bidders with the request that they bolster their financial offers.

But if none of the offers match the government’s yardstick, it should, once and for all, declare a moratorium on the sale – at least until the global economy hits smoother waters, shipping picks up again and the super-rich feel confident enough to begin ordering new superyachts.

This, of course, could take some time, but patience is a valuable asset, as are the shipyards – even if there is a temptation to chip away at the growing public deficit.

And if the government’s intention is for a quick sale, it might just have to go back on its pledge not to surrender the land lining Grand Harbour, potentially prime real estate, to property development.