The way things stand at this moment in time, there seems to be a discreet feeling of frustration on both sides of the political fence. It is not a situation that can go unnoticed by the seasoned observer.

I had an English journalist friend for company when we last went to the hustings in 2008. He came here for a weekend break although I had diplomatically and unsuccessfully tried to convince him to postpone it to another weekend, another time. He obviously asked why, since Peter is not exactly the type to be told what to do, how to do it and when to do it.

“But we have a general election,” I told him as passionately as most Maltese would no doubt be when dealing with the prospect of such a national event. I almost said calamity.

“And so,” his crisp email retort was, “that should make the visit a lot more interesting. Did you know we sometimes have elections here too, by the way?”

Now I knew I was fighting a losing battle. How was I to explain that general elections in Malta are a kind of stop-the-world-from-turning occasion that monopolises our collective powers of concentration? He was booked to fly in on the so-called “day of silence”, i.e. the very eve of the election, so I again tried to explain, almost to the tune of the old Sixties song, that “there’s a kind of hush” on the day. And who in their right mind would be able to keep him company and be with him while the rest of the nation fretted and bickered silently.

Peter came anyway. It was his first visit to the island, so on polling day we did the usual tourist rounds in a very surreal environment, at least to me. While people queued to vote in the towns and villages, we queued with several other bemused tourists visiting Gozo, St John’s, the Hypogeum and Birgu.

Late the following morning, Vote Counting Sunday, we happened to be at Hagar Qim and Mnajdra when petards from nearby Zurrieq started exploding loudly in the sky. “What’s this?” asked Peter, seemingly shocked, as were the few other visitors around us.

“Oh, nothing,” I said, acting as naturally and unconcerned as I possibly could by way of saying we’re civilised too, “I think someone is already celebrating the election result.” But the journalist in him could hardly be contained: “Who would that be?” he asked. The smoke from the petards was white so he could be excused for thinking in popeable terms.

“Well, Zurrieq is a Labour stronghold,” I replied timidly, “so possibly it’s Labour people celebrating, but it’s too early for my liking...” Aaah, the wisdom of a decades-old career.

The rest of the story is history. By the time I drove Peter back to his St Julian’s hotel, the flags and rags in the streets were strangely changing colours, from red to blue. It was more like a scene from an Austin Powers movie. I had to further explain to Peter blue is not Labour’s colour in Malta and there must have been a shift of fortunes, which of course there was by a few hundred votes.

In the end, it was a question of how long would a lame government, like the one we so surreptitiously observed being born, last. Everyone was doing it and, incredibly, four years plus down the road, everyone is more or less still doing it. For many of us, it has seemed like from here to eternity, I guess, but it has also been no joyride for those who have seen these last four years fly past... incredibly fast.

These past 18 months especially, have seen the national mercury going up and down in a mystifying way. At one time, all our predictions seemed to be coming to fruition, then suddenly a whiff of oxygen goes into the government’s lungs and it’s back to counting the days by the two tribes that make up the nation. The feeling is similar to when one watches his favourite football team playing. When it’s winning, oh, the clock simply seems to have got stuck, when it’s losing, it just ravages away at an incredible speed.

It is because we take our politics so seriously, of course. But political events of the past year do justify the oscillating conditions. There has never been a Nationalist government, ever, in the situation that the Gonzi administration has been quagmired in since those fateful 2008 days. GonziPN had then done a world-acknowledged George W. Bush trick and, very much like the illiterate Texas cowboy, robbed the election.

Now with several of its own MPs openly showing dissent and a public largely distrustful, the Gonzi government continues to find itself fighting for another day almost everyday. It is not a very comforting situation to be in. Quite like 1987 re-visited, what with the loyal rank-and-file mob converging on village party clubs every Sunday to applaud and to paint an unreal picture of political unison and serenity.

It has all boiled down to the question of “would he, could he, won’t he?” (in dual reference to Franco Debono, so-called maverick government MP, and the Prime Minister, as every sitting of the House of Representatives adopts the attitude and environment of a betting shop) while Parliament itself grinds and grunts under an obviously perplexed Mr Speaker who, alas, seems destined to have to carry more of the burden he has had to take on his shoulders so frequently of late.

Peter and I are, of course, still in touch. He has often fired cynical arrows in my direction, in most of them casually asking whether the “short-lived” government is still going strong or not. “It is just a question of time,” I keep telling him optimistically, almost whimsically.

Sometimes I think I can hear him chuckling. Or is it Franco Debono banging away again on his parliamentary bench?