Something deep has moved down in the nation’s collective psyche. We don’t get it normally, but when we get it, it is unmistakeable.

This is election fever. The certainty we will be facing a crucial election in the coming weeks, months, has now percolated, for good reason or for bad, to the entire population.

We normally live in quite peaceable amity, regardless of our political leanings, but when the election battle-cries sound, we become Tutsis and Hutus – you know, there is no ethnic difference in Malta, nor religious, nor social class differences. Yet, the approach of an election sends deep-felt messages to all of us – one substantial part of it reminds us of our tribal allegiance, another substantial part assesses whether our side will end up on top or fall, and yet another part vainly tries to see reason and to analyse the issues. The die is cast and this last component is the weakest link of all.

For the moment, the running is being done by Labour, with the Nationalists silent and giving every indication of being in flight. At the last election, in 2008, things were about the same and the PN stance turned out to be a ploy.

Labour has focused on Lawrence Gonzi in the two billboards that have appeared. The first one, cannily, builds on the popular revulsion caused by the €500 a week increase the ministers gave themselves, rightly quoted by the MISCO survey as the top concern of voters.

By focusing on Dr Gonzi’s super-exposed face (and showing him in unflattering light) Labour is building this stage of its campaign on the Nationalist leader, stoking up the popular protest against the man who triumphed against all odds in 2008. Everything is heaped on to him – from the rates increases to City Gate, from Arriva to any other issue, from his ways of tackling the Opposition to his ways of tackling internal dissent within his own party.

He is portrayed as arrogant, stubborn and unbending and in people’s minds his stance following the divorce referendum, when he still opposed what the majority had voted for, still rankles.

Over the past few weeks, a new dimension has been added: the PN has set up its billboards but has covered them up with advertising – it has not responded to those of the PL.

Now the PL has come up with a new billboard, showing Dr Gonzi, looking very harassed, clinging to his chair. The implication is absolutely clear. That is not just the PL take on matters but how most people are interpreting the silence on the PN’s – and even more on the PM’s – side.

The man who holds the clue to what will be happening is the Nationalist leader and none other.

Ever since Franco Debono abstained on the no-confidence motion, Dr Gonzi has practically dropped out of sight. True, he had the not trifling job to continue governing the country and he also had to cope with a crucial European Council meeting.

Now he has come up with a leadership contest and, once again, this reinforces the popular perception that it is just another time-waster, reinforcing the image on the billboard, and the more common popular perception that he is playing for time to try and boost the lagging PN support.

Let’s take the leadership contest first. If anyone hoped Franco Debono could be smoked out like that, that person has not understood one bit of Dr Debono. It is almost a certainty that there will be no other contender in the contest, not even a token candidate, so Dr Gonzi will be, Ceaucescu-like, the sole candidate. Labour too, if we remember correctly, has had its Ceaucescu moments, so it should not gloat.

I still cannot understand Dr Gonzi’s reason for asking for a confirmation by his party. He was the clear leader of the 2003 leadership battle and the electorate confirmed him in the 2008 general election. There is no doubt whatsoever that the party is solidly behind him. It would have been equally solidly behind him if he were to move a motion banning the backbench rebels and some others from being party candidates.

Political parties being what they are, no one dares tackle the leader, at least this side of an election and least of all on the eve of an election. Those waiting in the wings and hoping to prosper in a leadership battle after an election defeat will not dare raise their heads over the parapet right now. This is the example of all political parties elsewhere in the world – it is not a local trait. So I still cannot understand why the PN is holding this leadership contest.

Unless – and many people to whom I speak seem to agree with me – it is to gain time. The past few weeks must have been quite heavy inside the ministries. We have seen how ministers have been coming out with at least one launch a day, and there have often been multiple launches. Programmes and initiatives are being announced with abandon.

That’s just what we can see. Beyond that, the wheels must be turning non-stop – Mepa permits, promotions, housing allocations, perhaps even jobs.

We seem to be having a repeat of the 2008 panic, where many benefited from the bazaar atmosphere and the country then had to spend no less than three years to recuperate. Ideally, a country should be having a ‘semestre bianco’ in the six months before an election, but we did not get it in 2008 and we did not get it either in distant 1987.

I clearly remember Dr Gonzi telling me some time ago that an election blocks the country for at least six months. While calling an election is clearly his prerogative, he must be the first one to understand that the country cannot stay waiting for ever. Whether his party is up or down in the polls is not as important as getting resolution of the issue.

The more that time drags on, the more Dr Gonzi is giving – even to his supporters – the impression that he is being dragged to the election feet-first.

And that’s not counting the time the PN must take to prepare to go to the country, present its message and let that message filter through to the people. The more time that is wasted in these preliminary skirmishes, the less time Dr Gonzi will have to present the electorate with his election platform.

It may also be – that again is popular speculation – that Dr Gonzi is waiting for the March local council elections, now well under way, to find out more clearly what people are thinking. I personally do not see this, for local council elections have never been reflected in the outcome of a general election. In any event, if anything national can be gleaned from such elections, it will surely take time to integrate the issues into a reliable election platform. We’re talking thus of a September election. Can the country afford this?

On the other hand, we have been here before. On 4 November 2007 I wrote an article entitled Lawrence Gonzi ‘cunctator’ (delayer) and compared him to Quintus Fabius Maximus ‘Cunctator’ for delaying the holding of an election in December 2007, as many were expecting him to do. He did hold off and by the slimmest of margins was re-elected.

Having said that, his victory was dented by the JPO saga and he has been a lame duck ever since.

Besides, in that election he had to face a tired Alfred Sant who had already lost two elections and a referendum, whereas this time he faces a juvenile Joe Muscat, a rejuvenated Labour Party and with a party (his own) on its last legs, having shed many warhorses along the way.

Until this whole Franco Debono saga began, and before Dr Gonzi’s rather strange reaction to it, I had still, in my mind, considered Dr Gonzi’s re-election do-able. Now I am not so sure at all.

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