On the face of it, all Malta is still going round its normal duties and business but there’s a huge distraction underneath: The election.

Outsiders confess they are perplexed: They have never experienced an election like this in which there is no difference in policy between any of the contending parties. Indeed, the only difference is whoever gets to govern from Castile, otherwise it will be the same policies followed in anything and everything, from foreign policy to economic management to health to social affairs.

Yet the Maltese collectively and as individuals are keenly following the evolution of the election campaign, probably more than other peoples who have elections are doing theirs.

The election is the subject of discussions in homes, between friends, neighbours and chance encounters. Only those who are fully and publicly committed dare express their views on the social media. As for the rest, not just the great horde of ‘Don’t Knows’ in any opinion poll, but also people who maybe have opened up to the pollster but not to anyone else – they just keep their mouths shut and listen and watch all the time.

Over the past weeks, they have been regaled with a surfeit of politics on each and every television station. There is no way to escape this tsunami except by resolutely refusing to listen to any political discussion on any television station, resolutely refusing to hear the news, resolutely getting on with one’s lives as much as politics and the politicians would allow.

The great distraction, however, is the elephant in the room: The election. People just aren’t themselves. Politics and the evolution of the campaign dominate what people think, how they look at themselves and at the country. People seem relatively certain about the outcome of the election and they mentally prepare themselves. Given the resilience of the Labour majority in the polls, one hardly gainsays them.

That is why people have little time and aptitude to tackle and enjoy other things. In this, the weather and the year have collaborated to make everything out of synch.

Take Valletta’s Saint Paul feast. The feast had to be celebrated some three weeks ahead of its time because Lent (and Carnival) are early this year. That, and the cold and rainy weather, disrupted most of the preparations for the feast, even though the day itself was quite nice. It seemed a feast out of time, and the spirit, say the Valletta fans, was just not there.

Then take the Eurovision contest. Usually, it is prepared well in advance and people would have heard the songs before the final nights. This year had all the characteristics of something prepared in a hurry and not really well prepared at all.

The songs, generally speaking, were mediocre and did not inspire any enthusiasm. Compared to previous years, the plunge in standards was abysmal. The presenters too were a pale copy of those of previous years: they tended to speak far too much and mostly they spouted inanities.

The first night, then, was also characterized by technical faults which had singers mouthing out of synch with the song.

Even after the final night, there was nothing of the usual enthusiasm that usually follows the choice of the song that is to represent Malta. (Maybe, seeing the results of the past years, this is not a bad thing, for we have all been on the roller-coaster of euphoria followed by disillusionment, as we have in past years.)

Now we have Carnival and one waits to see if the distraction of politics will succeed in dampening that as well, although Carnival is a very popular event and feast and has a strong pull on the national psyche.

It has often been said that the people get the government it deserves. We may widen this a bit to say that the people also get the election campaign they deserve; and also that the people also get the distraction they deserve.