Marisa Micallef is a person I have never spoken to and who doesn’t need me to stand up for her. I’m pretty sure she has enough guts to stand on her own two feet and fight off the personal flak she will undoubtedly receive from the conservatives. On the other hand though, I’d like the readers to pause for a moment to comprehend that though Micallef’s defection to Labour might initially seem (or there are those who want it to seem so) an act of expediency, the move is only a small part of the jigsaw of the whole ‘natural’ and inevitable political process thanks to past and present scenarios.

Let’s start with the EU issue: true this might be a closed chapter and true also that both parties now agree that Malta’s place is firmly within the EU. Nevertheless, the political changes that this issue caused have only just started to show and Micallef’s defection is probably just the tip of the iceberg!

Many people who ought to be left leaning because they believe in liberal and progressive ideals were reluctant to vote Labour in 2004 due to its rigid and at times ambiguous stand on the European issue; they felt that their vision of Malta and that of Labour were incoherent and thus they voted Nationalist. The Labour Party’s worst mistake was that it shunned the clear Yes vote and in the process lost thousands of voters who ran a mile not only from Labour, but also from its leadership.

Come 2008 the PN showed clear signs of fatigue, most especially within its grassroots who had it up to their noses with the PN’s mismanagement, brazen attitude, languor and inertia. Segments of the PL electorate still kept a “safe” distance from their leadership, which, though it had ample positive traits, was still far too “tainted” with the anti-EU membership vote campaign. This fact was used by the PN in a carefully planned campaign that was ultimately Gonzi’s lifesaver. The idea of creating a GonziPN was the last card the tired party could play and they played it right, so right that people like the undersigned believed that the rush of adrenalin was a sign of things to come.

Obviously we were grossly mistaken and since that fleeting blip the PN’s popularity has taken a huge nosedive. This administration has kept all its negative pitfalls and added more to them: it has become evermore arrogant, it ignores civil society, it has lost its social conscience and most of all its total lack of leadership has led the PN into an entangled web of personal interests and ego-trips that are rocking its stability to the core. On the other hand, the PL is regenerating itself in what can be termed as a long and at times painful process. It is slowly but surely accepting its past achievements and mistakes; it has made friends with those it had frightened away from its fold and at the same time it is seeking pastures new with a more refined media-savvy attitude, a pro but very down to earth attitude to Malta’s role in the EU, an approachable, young and passionate leadership and an open arms attitude to all those who have moved to the party.

It is here that the Marisa Micallefs of this world come on the scene. Thousands of people who voted PN or supported it are now feeling much more comfortable with the party that represents their pro-European, liberal values; people who feel that a confessional and conservative party no longer fits the bill when it comes to governing this island within a European context; people who feel that this government is in an apathetic quagmire which only a sweeping defeat can ever heal. These people aren’t moving to Labour because the PN ship is sinking; they would have done so long ago had this been the case. They are going for Labour because they know that due to the way things are turning out, this party is the only alternative this country has to push itself out of this conservative mediocrity.

This is precisely why Marisa Micallef’s defection to the PL is no Damascus conversion. It is no shockingly peculiar move or a treacherous misdeed but the face of thousands who last June voted PL for the first time out of conviction and determination to change the course that this island state has unfortunately taken under a government that is now past it sell by date!

Albert Gauci Cunningham

BUGIBBA