I am assuming today that we are living in pre-electoral times, without wanting to anticipate what the outcome of the parliamentary vote on Thursday will be.

The title of this article and what I am saying is not meant in any way in a disrespectful or – even worse – vengeful manner.

Once elections are the mainstays of democracy, it is equally essential for the people who have been at the top to come into contact with the reality at ground-floor level.

In the myths of old, the king used to disguise himself and go among his subjects at night, trying to find out what they were talking about and what their gripes were. This may have had a threatening side to it, in the sense that the malcontents would later part company with their heads.

But that was then and this is now. Still, it is as important now, if not more so, for a leader to come down to ground floor level and find out what people really think, how they are living, what are their gripes.

Were it possible, Dr Gonzi should have been disguised and let out on his own, without minders, to taste some experiences from Malta 2012. Such as:

· Wait at Marsascala for the Arriva bus and see how long it takes to get to Valletta (Dr Gonzi has never once taken a bus)

· Or go to the Emergency Department at Mater Dei and wait like everybody else, including the so-called emergency department behind the closed doors where people are bunched together on gurneys and stretchers with no thought for their dignity or comfort

· Or take a trip to Mepa and be treated as many members of the public are treated on even the most straightforward matters

· Or (this should be home ground) go to Court and try to make some sense of the enduring chaos there.

I could go on and on. I repeat, this is in no way meant to be disrespectful or vengeful. On the contrary, were it at all possible, it could be cathartic – Dr Gonzi could come to look at things very differently from how he normally looks at them.

But given that it is impossible for him to disguise himself and get out and about among ordinary people, my suggestion is well-meaning and still valid, I think.

Even without the recent polls and surveys, it is clear that Dr Gonzi’s party is far below his opponent’s in the run-up to the election.

If he now attempts to defend all that he and his government have been doing, without taking into consideration the real anger and negative feelings there are in the country regarding this administration, Dr Gonzi would be consigning himself and the party he leads to Opposition and years and years away from power.

This is not necessarily a bad thing in itself, because history shows that a party can only regenerate itself in Opposition and hardly ever while in government.

However, there have indeed been cases where prime ministers have overcome a widespread negative feeling among the electorate by a careful and humble approach.

In the June 2006 election, Tony Blair was deeply mistrusted by his own people. He had led them into a war where soldiers got killed on the basis of a lie. The Conservatives, led by a weak Michael Howard, were out in front in the opinion polls. Blair had Gordon Brown on his back all the time, asking him when was he going to resign and let him be Prime Minister.

And yet Blair won. One reason he did this, as Andrew Rawnsley describes it, was because Blair accepted to take the medicine. In carefully managed scenarios, he was made to face people who for one reason or another had gripes against his government. One woman, at a televised conference, even opened her mouth wide and invited the Prime Minister to look into her gums because of NHS delays.

That is what I mean by cathartic: the people need to express their anger, they need to see the high and mighty prime minister squirm, they should also get to hear him say Sorry. Sorry for the €500 a week mess. Sorry for the delays at Emergency. Sorry for the high prices for electricity and water. Sorry for the roads and also for Arriva’s malfunctions.

Whatever one says, and I have been adding some of my own, about Franco Debono, it is incontrovertible that he has touched a raw nerve in the country. To build an election campaign based on beating Franco down may well get out the Nationalist vote but will not assuage people who for one reason or another are angry at the government.

The worst tactic the government and the party can choose now is to come over high and mighty, as if no one in government has made any mistake, as if everything is hunky-dory.

I can remember a comparable time in Maltese history – the 1998 election. When Dom Mintoff brought the Alfred Sant government down. Dr Sant, quite naturally, reacted in a very outraged way. But that meant he and his government took the moral high road against this ‘traitor’ who had betrayed his party. Dr Sant was fully convinced (or was persuaded) he would win. Dr Sant’s opponent, Eddie Fenech Adami, took (or was made to take) quite the opposite approach. He apologised and continued to apologise until he was blue in the face. He had lost the 1996 election because he and his party were considered to be arrogant. Dr Sant lost. Dr Fenech Adami won.

All through the past weeks, during the Franco Debono crisis, there has been indecent haste by the Opposition declaring the government’s time to be over and the election a matter of weeks away. But there has also been one delaying tactic after another by the government which has been perceived by the country as a whole as showing the government to be completely scared of an election and a rushed, hasty one at that. That has reinforced in people’s minds the sensation the government knows it’s beaten and it’s just trying to eke out a day or two more, a week or two more, or even a month or two more. People have been speculating who is getting a deal rushed through in these final days.

The polls that have been made public don’t give much reassurance, given the distance of five percentage points between the two parties. That however masks the as usual huge number of Don’t Knows or Don’t Says. The parties would have their own polls, which may or may not tell the same story.

But just as no party enters the election as the declared winner, no party enters it as the declared loser. And when the campaign begins they would be, more or less, on the same starting blocks.

Which is why the Prime Minister must get off his high horse and come down to grass roots to hear people’s complaints, face their anger, apologise if he has to and seek to do better. And to show he really means it and that his apology is not just a Machiavellian way to get on top again.

Taking the medicine is cathartic and should be cathartic to the man who rules the country from high on Castille hill. Election time is the time to get out of that hothouse and to muck about with the rest of the country.

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