Both political parties have adopted a negative campaigning approach in the first spate of billboards we have seen around the island. If this tactic is the shape of things to come when the election campaign is in full swing, then I believe that they will be inflicting more harm than good to their aspirations.
From what we have seen so far, it is clear that both parties have chosen to attack the other side, rather than to promote what they are proposing. It’s like having a company going on a promotional drive not to say how good its product is, but finding fault with that of the competitor. More often than not, these campaigns do not work. Consumers want to know what companies are offering, not what their competitors aren’t.
The Labour Party has embarked on a strategy to demonise anything connected with the Nationalist Party, especially its leader. It is reminding me of the way the PN tried to picture then Labour leader Alfred Sant in the run-up to the 1996 election. It did not work, and Alfred Sant took Labour to victory.
That large photo of Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi holding his hands over his ears did not give the neutral voter the idea that the PN leader was not listening to the people. The message it imparted was that anything Labour is saying is not worth listening to.
For its part, the PN’s slogan that “Labour won’t work” – with the double meaning of the word “labour” very evident in the long line of people queuing up for a job – is an attempt to take people back to the PL’s past.
It is true that, unfortunately for Labour, many of its exponents held important positions during the 1980s and mid-1990s – when Labour first governed against the will of the majority and later crashed Malta’s economy with a string of wrong decisions in just 22 months. Yes, it’s also true that having Alex Sceberras Trigona talking about democratic credentials makes one shudder when one remembers his past links with North Korea.
But on the other hand, the PN’s approach is diametrically opposite to what Dr Gonzi keeps repeating when the PN’s past – even the more recent one, with all the problems that the party had to face internally these past four years – is brought up. Dr Gonzi says that what is important is tomorrow, not yesterday. Drawing a parallel, then Labour’s past may not be that important either.
Once again, both the PN and PL have fallen into the trap of coming up with a strategy that suits their diehard supporters. But they should not be trying to convince them. The diehards will vote PN or PL anyway, irrespective of what their party says or does.
It is the floating voters, the undecided, the neutral people – call them whatever you will – who need to be persuaded to vote either way. The number of such people grows with every election. But the kind of billboards that have been produced so far will do little to reach out to them. Most of all, if political parties believe that people will vote X or Y because of a “clever” billboard, then they are in the wrong.
People want to know what lies ahead, and how the political parties will be tackling the challenges that we will face as a country and as individuals. In this respect, Labour stands to lose more if it persists in this kind of negative campaigning.
This is because we know more or less what the PN stands for. It has been in government for the past 14 years, and we know how it reacts to certain difficulties. We know, for example, that thanks to the policies adopted in the past few years, Malta has survived and continues to survive the onslaught of economic turmoil that has crushed so many European countries.
But we know very little about Labour policies, if anything at all. We have heard a lot about the electoral programme it is drawing up, but we have heard nothing about what it contains. It’s as if the Labour Party is afraid of saying what it will do, fearing that it will be rejected like the living wage concept was some time ago.
The more the PL keeps its cards close to its chest, the more it will be perceived as a party that wants to win by default, not because it is offering a better alternative. The more it attacks the PN without saying what it is proposing , the more it is seen as a party that wants power but does not know what to do with it. With the Labour Party appearing so lustful for an early return to government that it jumped at every opportunity created by dissident Nationalist MPs to try to force an early election, the least it could do is tell us what its plans are in the eventuality of a Labour victory.
On the other side of the political fence, the PN knows that it has a mountain to climb, one that is far more difficult than the one it had in 2008 when it won by a few hundred votes to clinch its third electoral win in a row. But it is not making things easier by only focusing on Labour’s past mistakes and current shortcomings. By doing so, it gives the impression that it is running out of breath and, like Labour, wants to win by default too. It seems it wants to win because of what happened in the 1980s and mid-1990s, not because it has the better options today.
Now, a win is always a win, whether it comes by default or not. But at this point in time, for different reasons, both parties need to at least try to prove themselves as being the better choice. They cannot continue to concentrate on each other’s faults without working to push forward their own ideas and proposals.
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