What’s done is done and it is useless crying over spilt milk, the Prime Minister said when he announced that he will be calling an election for 9 March.

It will be five years and a day since the last time we went to vote, and in spite of all the difficulties that Dr Lawrence Gonzi has faced all throughout, he has managed to steer the ship – his words – to port. Whether this strategy has worked – the Labour Party continues to insist that the PM has dragged his feet and continues to do so – remains to be seen.

Some see it as a delaying tactic, clinging to power and sheer arrogance, while others believe it is a success in itself that, in spite of all the difficulties that the PN faced, it has managed to arrive this far. More importantly than this, the government – regardless of its various mistakes – has kept the country afloat in economic terms when other nations around us have collapsed.

It was only recently reported, for example, that the economies of Portugal and Greece have shrunk by 3.5 per cent and nearly 7 per cent respectively, that Ireland has presented its sixth austerity budget in a row, that in Spain unemployment has risen beyond 25 per cent and that Cyprus has requested to be bailed out.

Here, unemployment is low, the economy is growing and the deficit is going down. The government did make its mistakes – the honoraria issue stands near the top of this particular list – but on the whole the country has fared well in this term. The leadership of the country and the party both proved very challenging for Dr Gonzi, and it is safe to say that he did better as a prime minister than as a party leader.

The polls still say that the Labour Party has a steady advantage over the Nationalists. But in the three months that separate us from the election, many things can change. They did last time around, when the PN started the campaign way behind the Labour Party, but beat them at the finishing line by 1,500 votes.

This is perhaps why the Labour Party is making so much fuss about the date of the election. It is insisting that the Prime Minister is still in time to hold the election on 23 February – two weeks before the established date. With Parliament being officially dissolved on 7 January, the first available date is 23 February, the PL is saying. Maybe the PL is afraid that, the more time that passes, the better the chances for the PN to recover lost ground.

But, at the end of the day, it is the PM’s prerogative when an election is held, so long as it is within the laws of the land. The 9 March date is within his rights.

What is important at this stage is that the two parties have agreed to postpone the election until after the Christmas and New Year festivities. The Labour Party, in this respect, did well in agreeing to this.

We have already seen the two parties hold activities that are specifically linked to the election campaign. These events are set to stop as from this week but will then resume with a bang, once 7 January arrives. We will have daily press conferences, mass meetings and political discussions, the number of which will increase as D-Day draws nearer.

An election in Malta has always been close and highly-charged. What I do hope is that the campaign will be based on issues, rather than personal attacks. The two parties are already targeting the “other” leader, but they should keep in mind that any kind of personal attacks have a tendency to backfire, rather than gain support.

Both parties still have to officially present their election manifesto, which I presume will be made public on 7 January. It is only then that we can start to gauge what they are proposing for this country in the next five years.

The Labour Party has so far resisted the calls that were made for it to explain what it has in mind, particularly on how it intends to reduce water and electricity charges. The PL has been saying all along that it plans to reduce these, but now it is time for it to say what it plans to do.

But an election manifesto is not only energy rates. The Labour Party must also say what it would like to do in all other sectors, and this is where its test will be. Its track record – when it comes to the economy, employment, education, health and so on and so forth – has not been good. We all remember how stipends were turned into loans, how a fee was introduced for health services, how VAT was replaced by 33 taxes and how unemployment reached high levels the last time it was in government.

So the public has a right to know what the PL is planning for these crucial sectors of our society.

For its part, the Nationalist Party has said that the basis of its programme will be what it has already presented in the budget, and will also focus on health, education and employment, three sectors in which the government excelled in the last legislature.

One thing is clear. The diehard Nationalists will vote PN and the diehard socialists will vote PL. But there is a sizeable chunk of the population who belong to neither political party, and who will decide on past performance and future plans.

It is these people who need to be convinced to vote one way or the other. These are the people who do not go to political activities and keep their thoughts to themselves. But in the quiet of their homes they will follow what is taking place on television, in newspapers and in news portals, and will make up their mind on what they see and hear.

These are the people who will decide the outcome of the election and these are the people the two parties must target in order to win.

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