So here we are, on the eve of another election.

Planeloads of Maltese coming for a brief holiday in the sun on a low-cost flight have already started to arrive. Billboards galore. And wall-to-wall coverages on television stations and newspapers. Printed material falling into letterboxes at all times of the day, sometimes even at night. Ads in the newspapers have turned a recession year into a bumper one.

And the usual head-to-head confrontation between the two main parties, the two main leaders, with direct debates all over the place.

A general election – only it’s nothing like that at all. It is easy to see that Joseph Muscat wants to build the event as if it were a general election, maybe to show he could have won last year. Maybe Lawrence Gonzi too wants it like that, to show he could win again with the same hard work, the same doggedness, which characterized him last year when, against all odds, he came out on top.

Maybe too, but this is pure hypothesis, deep down he knows that last year’s win was no victory at all, considering the rather rum backbenchers he has. And maybe too this is another occasion for him to show recalcitrants – those he removed from ministers, those he did not appoint – he is still the boss.

People all over the island are betting on the seats the two big parties will obtain. The most common bet one hears (forget the five seats stupidity from people who should know better) is that Labour will win four to PN’s one. And if there is a sixth seat somewhere in the future, the most common bet is that PN will take this. Other people have different predictions.

If Labour were to get three seats to PN’s two, this would be no victory at all, because there will be no change in the status quo, after all the effort, between the two parties.

It seems clear that Labour supporters will go out in droves, while PN supporters, at least this side of the week, seem to be saying to those pushing them to go out and vote, that this is not an ‘important’ election and that they want to give the government a bloody nose.

Malta becomes very tribal at election time, even more at an election such as this with no real risk and no real consequences for anyone.

PN supporters try to argue that if Labour acquires more than 50 per cent of the votes, they will go on a high that will make them say that this is a vote of no confidence in the government and that it should resign. But the PN supporters, on whom this has been tried, just shrug their shoulders and go about their way.

Surprisingly, or not surprisingly at all, one sees the same trend elsewhere in Europe. The vote in Britain is a vote of confidence in Brown’s government. Berlusconi has turned the election into a mini general election, which is why Lega Nord has been pushing for all its worth on the illegal immigrants issue, even kicking small Malta because that looks good on Italian media. The same can be said of other countries. So there is an element of the EP election being overshadowed by national political considerations.

But come this four-day election this week, ennui will probably win over all the other considerations, as voter turnout, especially if the weather is good, will propel voters to the beaches and the countryside rather than to the polling booths. As I said, who cares, this is not an ‘important’ election.

The emphasis, the thrust that is being artificially boosted here in Malta is completely wrong. On the one hand, of course, the relative strength of the different parties is important, or rather, not unimportant, but at the same time the voters must look at the wider picture. They are being asked to choose. Let us eliminate all the other parties for this consideration, between EPP and PES, not between PN and PL. EPP and PES have quite different approaches to the crisis Europe is suffering from. One would tackle the crisis from a centre-right point of view, while the other from a centre-left one. One privileges free enterprise, the other favours social integration and equality. Of course, we have no inkling of this here, seeing that Labour is at least on the Right as PN is, if not even more. But those we elect will not go to Brussels and remain PL or PN members, but members of PES or EPP.

I feel the public is carefully shifting through the candidates. I predict (or would like to hope) the electorate will send to Brussels and Strasbourg people who know what Europe is about and who can network and do their job as well, if not better, than the first bunch we sent. For the coming election is remarkable by the very wide selection on offer, with people who have some experience of the EU and its workings and those who have absolutely no idea.

But the two main parties have also boobed. The PN advert, for instance, which appears on television, focuses on illegal immigrants when this is one issue about which, for most people, neither the PN government nor the EU are doing much about.

PL ads focus on ‘Gonzi’ as if he is to blame for the world recession. Somehow the word recession never comes up in PL talk. And most recent developments have shown PL is very, very sensitive to the e60,000 cars owned by Joseph Muscat and his wife, just as it used to be sensitive to whoever dared mention Alfred Sant and his wig.

Some things never change – PL is over sensitive and PN and its dogs of war stops at nothing. Good voting.

How Dom Mintoff was tricked by John Dalli

I recently heard, again, the story behind the final countdown back in 1998.

Many still remember the seven- or 10-hour-long speech by Dom Mintoff to a packed Parliament and a nation hanging on to every word on the radio.

At one point, it seems, Dom looked around him and noticed that John Dalli was missing. He was in Libya at the time.

Possibly calculating that John Dalli could not make it back in time for a vote, Dom hinted he was going to vote against the government, as he had many times threatened to do but somehow never did.

Eddie Fenech Adami’s political antennae were working overtime. That morning, he realised a vote would be taken that same evening and he ordered all MPs to attend as a vote would be taken.

But what about John Dalli, he was asked. Enquiries found there was no flight from Libya that day. “Send a private plane to get him,” Eddie ordered.

Detto fatto (no sooner said than done). But it was not an easy job. Those were the times of sanctions and no flights were supposed to be made to Libya. However, somehow, the plane was sent and was expected back.

Dom meanwhile ranted on and on, but still no sign of John Dalli. When Dom finally sat down, Lawrence Gonzi stood up and for quite a long time spun out argument after argument as only a lawyer out to waste the time of the court knows how to do.

Finally, John Dalli entered the House.

Dom gave a start as if to signify: So that’s what it was all about.

But, having given his word he was going to vote against the Sant government, he did just that.

Dr Sant’s government fell.

I have a problem

I have a problem with Minister Tonio Fenech and The Sunday Times’ story on the investigations at the VAT Department.

As far as I know, the police are carrying out the investigations. They alone should, if they see fit, provide information about the investigations that are being carried out. Presumably, this being a country where legality reigns, the police will only provide information, if at all, once the investigations are closed and people are about to be arraigned.

For the minister to pre-empt everything and to come out in the media with juicy titbits on the case is not just jumping the gun but also, perhaps, worse.

For, as the Opposition is arguing, is this not a case where there is (I would say might be) a case for the investigation of the political background to the whole issue, including and up to the minister himself?

By no means does this mean to say that the minister is himself responsible for this mess, but there are issues in the case that are still awaiting explanation. Like who found out what was happening? Was this scandal exposed by structures in place to uncover such scandals? Or was it rather a case where either by accident, or most possibly, by someone who ratted and the case was picked up. In other words, not by the diligence of the structures that should be in place to find out such things.

Besides, the sums of money that are being mentioned seem to point to a long-established pattern of corruption that normal procedures should have identified.

All the more reason for the minister and the top echelons of the VAT Department to submit to investigations and to be ready to lay all the cards on the table and, when the investigation is finally over, a departmental investigation is carried out to strengthen such structures that have been found wanting.

For instance, why we had to have two separate revenue streams – Income Tax and VAT – with separate departments, procedures and whatnot is still not clear, at least in my mind. I never recall however the Inland Revenue Department ever getting into such a mess. So there might be something missing in VAT which is present, with all that is thrown at government departments and red tape and what not, in IRD.

Billboards with sound

We have taken a step backward this EP election. Not since 1976, and that’s a long time ago, have we had electioneering with noise.

Go to Freedom Square in Valletta where there are two big screens at opposite ends, one with PN videos and the other with PL ones.

On the occasions that I walked through the square, it was the PL billboard cum big screen that had sound.

I pity the people living in the square who had to hear the running commentary day and, presumably, night. Still, living there must have inured them to noise.

Valletta after 9am

If you go to Valletta after 9am, Park & Ride is full, ditto the ring road and the car parks near the Independence monument and the Excelsior. You go round in circles and you’re only wasting your time.

Yet the huge car park next to Park & Ride on the Blata l-Bajda side is completely empty. No wonder. When it was set up it was meant to take the spillover from Park & Ride but the red vans are nowhere to be seen, there is no place where one can wait for them and no information to the public about times and so on. Yet it can take much of the excess traffic pouring into Valletta on any morning.

More to the point, what about MCP extending the floor space by covering up the space in the middle. And wasn’t this what should have been done? If my memory serves me right, they were also supposed to landscape the top.

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