While it is true, as the great master of word-mongering George Orwell once said, that political language – and with variations this is true of all political parties and politicians – is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind, one would have thought reason could at least win through on local issues that demand simple credibility.

The current hullabaloo over the electoral commission’s juxtaposing of electoral registers that has sadly resulted in almost 3,000 young men and women being denied the opportunity to vote in a divorce referendum still almost two months away, is one more confirmation of the Gonzi government’s deep and shambolic plunge into a credibility crisis that is strictly of its own doing.

The members of the commission – Gonzi’s chosen representatives, by the way – who first agreed to a common-sense process of including as many legal voters as possible, but then suddenly decided to backtrack and re-think, should go and hide somewhere. That is if they have a sense of decency.

We have national commissions and committees and councils to ensure that the work they are entrusted with on behalf of the nation is carried out in a fair and non-partisan way. What has happened in this particular case, however, is a remarkable rendition of the not so harmonious work of Robert Mugabe’s infamous electoral commission in Zimbabwe.

And to pointedly prove Orwell right, we have had the Prime Minister accusing Opposition leader Joseph Muscat with manipulation over a question that smacks loudly and clearly of sheer government manipulation. There is no other way how one can describe a sensible electoral commission agreement, confirmed by its very own legal adviser, was suddenly reduced to an untimely and unnecessary typical political boxing bout the like of which occurs with monotonous regularity in Maltese everyday politics at village, town and national levels.

The question most people have rightly been asking is what happened in the two days that spanned the initial agreement reached within the electoral commission and the abrupt decision to turn against it? The obvious change of heart on the part of the Prime Minister’s nominees on the commission must have come about as a result of some sort of political manipulation, especially since it is known that even the ruling party’s own delegate had been in agreement with the proposal to, correctly, base the referendum on the very latest version of the electoral register.

One of course is baffled by the whole issue. Why should someone, the Prime Minister or a representative of his, intervene with the commission over something so straightforward as the granting of the right to vote to almost 3,000 eighteen-year-olds, unless there is a manipulative motive to it all? Whatever the Opposition did or did not do in connection with the divorce motion in Parliament is absolutely irrelevant.

There is a feeling of extreme negativity within government circles that is undoubtedly undermining their credibility. Do they honestly want a free and democratic process to be seen being carried out or is someone unable to come to terms with the reality of the new generations of open-minded Maltese citizens having a say on an issue that is bound to have a lasting effect on them and their lives?

When you see how it all happened it leaves you speechless. The electoral commission had two options to consider, the first being to issue the referendum writ on 30 March or 18 April. The latter option was the Labour Opposition’s proposal on 23 March, which meant everyone would have been able to vote since a new electoral register would be issued in April.

It is also known the proposal was unanimously backed by all members of the commission and, as regards its legality, given the green light by the commission’s adviser. The two party delegates also agreed with the proposal. But, lo and behold, at a meeting two days later, the Prime Minister’s nominees changed their position and insisted that the writ be issued on 30 March, thus denying the vote to 2,800 young men and women who turned 18 after last October. I guess that must make our European Union partners proud of our unbending commitment to democracy, and Mugabe can wait.

Since then it has just been yet another boring political tug-of-war in which the only losers are the voters that in the forthcoming divorce referendum will remain without a vote.

Prime Minister Gonzi has certainly shown on numerous occasions what a political acrobat he can be. He keeps his balance by saying the opposite of what he does. This time, though, he has surpassed himself.

In a situation like this there are bound to be those who, quite understandably, start asking more awkward questions on similar scenarios that occurred in the not so distant past and could possibly re-occur in the fast-approaching future.

For example, does the current issue bear any resemblance to the suspicious case of the polling-time extension in the 2008 general election that resulted, possibly because of it, in a knife-edge majority for the incumbent? And are we seriously back on the road to holding yet another general election in which voters and election officials have to rely, if needed, on hopelessly expired identity cards?

Perhaps, after all, the divorce referendum will have served its purpose whether it is the yes or no vote that prevails. It will have opened people’s minds more to the manipulative strategies of a party in government that, like most Arab leaders and their regimes at this moment in time, knows – albeit belatedly – its days are numbered.