This election campaign struggles to come to life. It meanders between peaks of popular participation brimming with excitement and troughs of despondency.

Granted that, given the circumstances we still have no idea when we will be asked to express our vote. With the US presidential election coming up, we miss the regularity that the wise Americans have imposed on themselves and regret that exercising our democratic vote has come to depend on the very fragile support this government has (or does not have) in the House.

So far, Lawrence Gonzi has resisted doing what Alfred Sant did in similar circumstances in 1998, but this has led to his being attacked for clinging to power till the very last minute.

So far Franco Debono has not gone over to the Opposition and, as his rants get wilder and wilder, he still, as Joe Mizzi challenged him to do at last week’s House Business Committee (HBC), has not done what all his comments should lead him to do – vote this government out.

So now we have the strange situation that two Members (FD and JPO) attend the House Business Committee as if they no longer form part of this government’s one-seat majority and yet there is that small step that is needed to unseat the government.

All that Dr Debono seems to be able to do is to go into verbal overkill. Even so, these are indeed extraordinary circumstances which all show how the State has allowed itself to be weakened. In any State that respects itself, anybody who refers to the head of government as Hitler gets prosecuted ‘ex officio’ by the Police. Must others join Dr Debono in calling Dr Gonzi Hitler before the police get moving?

Then again, the Labour Party has switched from following its election campaign plans to parrot whatever comes from Dr Debono’s mouth. The tail is truly wagging the dog. One would have thought that, whatever this is before the election, the party in Opposition would be ramping its election campaign instead of following the latest Franco Debono rant.

Consider the past few days. First there was the issue regarding the privatisation of parking spaces. Labour submitted a motion. Franco Debono added his part and the government had to retreat.

Then there was the Boris Johnson remark about bendy buses and Dr Debono was again all over the place arguing that Dr Gonzi must sack Austin Gatt. There is nothing the PL would like more and, if the resolution were to be brought up, Dr Gatt would pass through the Carm Mifsud Bonnici ordeal.

Then there were the innumerable Dr Debono motions, all of which he wants the House to debate.

And he has focused his anger at Austin Gatt and declared he will be voting the government out at Budget time if Dr Gatt is still in Cabinet. At last Thursday’s HBC, Dr Debono listed I-do-not-know-how-many things he wants done, how many resolutions he has tabled, that all alone, apart from the other ordinary business of the House, would take them months to get through it all. And yet, such is his inconsistency; he wanted the House to have Budget Day that very same day.

Now he is into the St Philip’s Hospital deal and wants an investigation of that too.

All the while, the country has its ear glued to anything coming from Parliament and wonders how all these problems are going to be solved and what’s coming up next.

It would seem that Dr Gonzi somehow seems to think that there is merit in resisting until next year, without considering the harm that all these pinpricks and worse are doing to his standing as party leader and the country’s self-perception.

Unless, that is, this hiatus is aimed at pleasing and placating all those who said they will not vote PN unless they get this and that. And when we thought that 2008 was the limit to which a clientelar election could get to, we can get to even worse levels. Is that it?

If anyone were to argue that these extra months are needed to get the PN act together, I can still see no evidence of that. The two billboards that they have put up are ridiculous and useless. One parroted Maggie Thatcher’s 30-year old one and the other parroted PL’s one of a Gonzi covering his eyes with one of Muscat covering his mouth. So inventive!

At the same time, Labour seems to prefer playing second fiddle to Franco Debono rather than explain its policies. When it’s asked to explain its policies and flesh out its commitment, such as about the electricity rates, PL prefers to fudge.

The PN side is more explicit – at least we know what its policies have been and assume it would be more or less more of the same.

But that’s it as well. The PN still has to come clean on where it understands it went wrong in the past years and what it will be doing in the future. And also what new policy stances it will adopt. One understands that in the social field, PN has to fudge given its strong Christian grassroots (well this applies to PL too) but there MUST be something new the PN wants to introduce.

All this applies, and even more, to Labour. It’s OK to skip and jump any time Franco Debono comes up with anything. It’s also OK to attack the government and its manifold dysfunctions, but at some point PL must come up with its policies and solutions. To just say ‘Get us in and we will be different’ cuts no ice with many, especially with the undecided, though it may look swell at the Sunday morning meetings.

Having said all this, the onus is nevertheless on PN, both in the short and long term.

In the short term, if Paris was ‘worth a Mass’, is sacrificing Austin Gatt worth extending the lifetime of this lame-duck government beyond the end of the year? Is pandering to Franco Debono’s threat worth the candle? I hold no candle for Austin Gatt. When I had to, I criticised him, since I felt I had to. But with all his faults and defects he has been an important factor of this administration and he did get things done. Arriva may not be his best effort (though even so there is simply no comparison between today’s, bendy buses included, and yesterday’s public transport system).

I will not go into the long list of what I consider to be Austin Gatt’s achievements. Having said that, I also believe that Richard Cachia Caruana has served the government and the country extremely well and did not deserve to be ousted the way he was. Carm Mifsud Bonnici was at a somewhat lower level on the government’s team but not even he deserved to be the victim of personal animosity and vengeance.

Dr Gonzi has a lot to answer for. Primarily for not standing up to the rebels in his midst and rescuing his government from being dragged in the mud in this way. More, he also needs to explain to the country why he took in these people in the first place that, when they sensed his majority to be just one seat, and especially when they were not compensated with a ministerial post, they threw their weight around.

Through all these terrible months, the government has lost any semblance of self-respect as it grovelled and restrained the normal reaction of a government when faced with a rebel.

It will soon be over, whatever. In a month’s time, with Budget Day, the end-time will come. The grovelling will be over. And the rebels will return to the anonymity they fully deserve, if not the ignominy as well. By then, hopefully, Labour will have made up its mind to tell us what it has planned for us. And PN will hopefully stop boasting about this and the other and inform us concretely of its plans for the future. Hopefully, it will not be as insipid as the billboards or promise us More of the Same.

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