On Monday night, I stayed in, glued to my computer. I was not alone. The entire country, connected via the Net, was watching the unfolding drama inside Parliament.

Now there is no need to go to the place to watch it. Hence there were few braving the cold in St George’s Square.

Many were undoubtedly watching the drama on television. But many were on their computers with the news websites updating us step by step on what was happening in the Chamber. The advantage of the websites is that no one can comment. This interactive mode is a paradigm shift in our engagement in public life.

Comment is no longer the preserve of the so-called ‘experts’ or pundits or ‘opinjonisti’ – what a horrible word – anybody can comment, the informed and the ill-informed, the grumpy old timers (or bored civil servants) with nothing to do, the students with a skewed vision of the world, the political activist, etc. Proper language is no longer an excuse for discrimination, either. One does not need to master a language in order to qualify for a comment. Actually, one no longer needs to master English for the comment boards now allow comments written in Maltese, and even in SMS-Maltese.

So on Monday night, while the country watched the government meet its doom, people were exchanging views and opinions. I did not notice it at first but at one point I saw the market leader inundated by 376 comments, all in the time it took the Prime Minister to speak. Other websites were less patronised but their viewership soared, nonetheless.

There was something else, too. In this world of instant news and comment, it is easy to make mistakes. And some slips of the tongue or of the pen showed a deep disturbance underneath the suave faces. Such as the NET reporter who said he was speaking from Misrah il-Helsien when he was actually speaking from St George’s Square and overawed, it seemed, by a small group of people who were cheering, as he put it, when the Budget was brought to a standstill.

Or the reporter on The Times’ website who referred to the Leader of the Opposition as Alfred Sant.

For those who were watching on television, it was mostly a mixed grill. PBS undoubtedly thought it was following proper parliamentary procedure by stopping its transmission with the prime minister’s speech so it did not report the philippic by the Member from the Fifth District. For this it was roundly criticised on social networks as censoring Franco Debono. Its stand was however somewhat undermined by NET, which carried Dr Debono’s onslaught on the Prime Minister and his ‘oligarchy’ via radio link.

Then came the culminating moment, the vote. As heard on radio, the outcome was clear but obviously the drama was lost. The Speaker’s measured tone and that of the tellers were studiously neutral. Again, it was the websites who broadcast the enormity of the event to the country. And I am pleased to state that it was this paper’s website which was first out with the news – I was monitoring both websites and can affirm this.

Then the air was filled with whoops of joy this time from the freer realms of the social media, which reverberated with celebratory outbursts, soon replied to by the disheartened supporters of the government that had just been voted out with vituperation of the MP who had now ceased to be MP.

This then was Malta in 2012.

I have purposely concentrated on this aspect because I firmly believe this is what will characterise the coming election, even more than the previous ones. With the explosion of popular comment we are now seeing on news websites and social sites, we are emerging into an open sea with no known contours. Where it may be said that a particular blog helped sway public opinion in 2008 when it kept going as the official media observed the Day of Silence, this time blogs, news websites and social media have so proliferated that I doubt if the Day of Silence will be observed except in its absence.

So I have focused on the popular reactions to the government’s downfall because these constitute the 2012 novelty. What was not novel at all was Dr Gonzi’s last speech. I have written this at other times and have reflected upon it on countless other occasions: I do not know who his speechwriters are and in this case I have no doubt he wrote his own speech. It was Lawrence Gonzi through and through: lists and lists of achievements (all of which true), and a very hurried and undertone conclusion, possibly written in the car on the way in. That may account for the fact that this time, for the first time if I am right, the media did not get his speaking notes, as it used to in other times and how even Labour has now learned to do.

To my detached mind, there is much that is revelatory in the composition of Dr Gonzi’s last speech. There is, in this as well as the PN’s general approach to the coming election, an overwhelming insistence on achievements. Now I don’t want to discount these achievements, which were many and remarkable. But the government is fighting the campaign on ‘what it has done for us, naughty so-and-sos who are ungrateful and unappreciative’.

Time and again I have complained that the government collectively tends to look at itself as being there solely, or almost, for its ‘programmes and initiatives’ rather than for its policies. Ministers have tended to look upon their work as consisting of so many programmes and initiatives, as we have seen with all the countless openings of this and that we have had over this past long pre-electoral year. And, as Dr Gonzi dutifully reminded us, there’s a lot more where that came from – the new Parliament building, the Oncology Centre, the Cirkewwa terminal, and so on.

But a party approaches an election with a campaign based on policies, ideas and visions for the future, based on the aspirations of the population or segments of it. To campaign just on the basis of past achievements is extremely reductive, as I see it. To promise more dollops of the same renders the party’s offer extremely limited.

An even worse tack is to base a campaign on vituperation of the other side. That there has to be competition is, we all understand, completely acceptable, but no self-respecting party should base its electoral appeal on downplaying and casting aspersions on the other side.

There are two other aspects to Dr Gonzi’s speech.

First of all, he simply refused to counter Franco Debono’s arguments. The only reference he made was to unspecified troubles within the ruling party. Just as there has been through this long and difficult year there was simply no engagement. Franco Debono was vilified as mad or on a huge ego trip, but at no point, not even in those last five minutes of fame, was there any semblance of dialogue from the leader of the party, which once prided itself for its dialogue. In true Orwellian terms, he was turned into a non-person.

This has boosted, not undermined, Dr Debono’s stand, with the main body of the electorate that admires a man who has the guts to stand by his words, who does what he has always declared he would do. If I remember correctly, not even the great Dom Mintoff made a speech declaring his vote (although previously he had made all those long speeches). The time before the vote was taken up, again if I remember correctly, by bickering between other MPs – Lino Spiteri was one – on other matters.

As to the central point of Dr Debono’s stance – that the government was a closed circle, a clique, and as regards his personalisation of Austin Gatt as the bête noire of the government, I have to beg to differ. Dr Gatt is undoubtedly a hate figure for all Labour ever since he led the Gakketta Blu gang in the 1976 election, showing a courage that Dr Debono has demonstrated to have. I have long held that ever since he lost Claudio Grech as his main assistant, his delivery has faltered. But even Dr Gatt has fallen foul of Dr Gonzi who relieved him of significant parts of his portfolio when he considered that Dr Gatt was not delivering, or had become stuck – Air Malta and Enemalta come to mind.

Dr Debono was however right when he complained of a Dirty Tricks department inside the PN, but he must have joined the party without studying its history. Nor does the other side, to be fair, can lay claim to virginity – see the leadership battle in 1992, between Lino Spiteri and Alfred Sant, which was never conclusively settled.

Lastly, Dr Debono still has to live down the claims that he did what he has done because his personal ambitions were thwarted. Had he the time and calmness to look around him on Monday, he could have seen many others besides him or even in front of him, whose ambitions have also been thwarted but who did not bring themselves to do what he has done. They may grumble, they may even rant in their cups, but they know where to stop. Dr Debono evidently does not, and it is he who has now come to a stop. His name will forever be a byname for treachery inside the party.

But the main damage to the party and to Dr Gonzi’s image was caused by none other than the man himself. I intend to write at length on this at another time for I feel this will have a significant impact on the election. Dr Gonzi comes through in his speech as a ‘man who bickers’, a man that most would feel uncomfortable with because he goes on and on and only his argument is right, a man who is decidedly uncomfortable with those who disagree with him, who shuns confrontation as he shunned a confrontation with Franco Debono that could have been damaging but perhaps cleared the air far more than the shunned silence did.

The other day I happened to see a YouTube of Dr Gonzi speaking at a mass meeting in Sliema with students baiting him. He was combative, even then, but far more uplifting than he is now. He has an even longer way to go now.

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