There is, as far as I know, no study on the pale blue vote – how big it is, what it consists of, whether it can be segmented, any past history, and so on. Yet I hold that it is the pale blue vote that holds the balance of Saturday’s election.

By pale blue vote I mean all those people who have voted PN at some point or other in the past years but who do not consider themselves to be party diehards.

It has been said many times that Maltese politics are tribal. Others then twist this to state that the Labour vote is tribal but the PN vote base is not. I disagree. It is true, as I see it, that the core PL voters – those whose only source of news is One News and whose television is always on One – form a greater component of the PL vote. That accounts for the solid viewer base of One which always varies from the 30 to the 35 per cent mark.

On the other hand, PN voters, even and especially the pale blue ones, do not flock to NET. On the contrary they follow all kinds of channels, possibly more international ones, and possibly too they do not watch television.

They are difficult to assess, to quantify, to study, because they resist categorization. They also resist being put in boxes. I suspect, though I admit I have no proof of this, that many of those who responded Don’t Know or NA to the repeated questionnaires are precisely people who refuse to tell, maybe even to their close relatives, which party they support. In a situation where the Labour base confidently expects to win, (and where many more believe Labour will win), such people who profess they don’t know must be PN supporters, maybe the pale blue ones who are disconnected from politics.

Pale blue voters come in segments. I would say that something like a majority is not in government employment but in private business, or still studying or housewives or pensioners. The bulk of government employees date back to MLP times although the composition has become more mixed in PN years.

Until the current frenzy hit the country, the pale blue voters enjoyed, really enjoyed, their lives. They went about their work, tackled their relationship issues, and had families, enjoyed sports, entertainment and travelling with none of the current partisan split.

But in recent months, and as the election drew near, and PL supporters grew more and more convinced this time they will win, the pale blue voters suddenly came to earth with a bump. They are now told that this time next week they will be out and Labour will be in.

They have watched amazed the slick organization of the PL campaign and have compared it to the completely inept PN one whose billboards make one cringe.

They can see the enthusiasm and youthful vigour of the Labour leader, his positive message and his crowd of followers and compare it to the bickering, angry and defensive approach of Lawrence Gonzi.

Then again, the scare tactics employed by PN in lieu of a proper electoral programme do not really affect the pale blue voters. Not because they do not fear the worst but more because they prefer not to think about that. And also because they have come to perceive a Labour victory as inevitable.

They are not convinced by Labour’s proposals; first and foremost the proposal to change over to gas for energy generation through a complicated PPP process and a deal with some private venture. They too would like to pay less hefty energy bills and of course they would all like to have more money to spend.

But they also know pipe dreams of pre-election times are rarely implemented as promised. They look around (another trait they do not share with the largely insular Labour base) and they know that the entire EU is in its worst crisis and that some other countries have it much worse than Malta.

Deep down, the pale blue voters may think of themselves as not tribal but they are tribal as well, although in a different way to Labour. Labour has built this campaign by insisting that many are switching from PN to Labour. Some names have been made public but the pale blue voters are not impressed. Malta is a small place and people know each other. Many of the so-called ‘switchers’ are no switchers at all.

Nor do I see many pale blue voters going for Alternattiva, although of course I may be wrong. Over the past years, AD has had a bad image among PN voters and the present party leadership is felt to be of a lesser stature than the one of 2008, even though that became involved in the unfortunate Harry Vassallo issue.

The main thing is I do not see the pale blue voters becoming enthusiastic about the present administration’s achievements, even though they readily acknowledge they were many and significant.

All these achievements have been overshadowed by the many mistakes the Gonzi administration has committed – from the surreptitious €500 a week rise the ministers awarded themselves, to the obstinacy on issues ranging from BWSC and City Gate where another administration would have trimmed its sails to the wind. And while Prime Minister Gonzi would think his defence of ministers Carmelo Mifsud Bonnici and more Austin Gatt to be loyalty in action, the pale blue voters see this more as pig-headed obstinacy.

For all this, however, many pale blue voters have no intention of joining the Joe Muscat bandwagon, especially now that it is going into overdrive with this ridiculous and repetitive ‘Taghna lkoll’ chant so reminiscent of the Left marches in Italy in 1969. Those who are joining the bandwagon, and more so those who will be out and celebrating today week, will be people out to be seen on the winning side, but they are not necessarily those who have voted Labour.

Some will be tempted to just abstain. As I wrote a fortnight ago, many say they will do that because they were not given something they believe was their right.

As for the current allegations of sleaze and corruption, many voters are deeply troubled by what is emerging from the current court cases and maybe point to a rather lax control of the Cabinet. But then the PL overdrive on such issues has the opposite effect on them.

Then they have another problem. In 2008, again in the throes of an election campaign, many thought PN would lose, the doubters were urged to ditch the old-timers and to go for the new and the young. Although the people who rocked the boat in the past legislature, from JPO to Franco Debono, had taken part in earlier elections, many PN voters switched to them hoping for a new broom. New broom indeed!

So this time, faced with the disappearance of so many Cabinet members and old-timers, the PN voters, whether pale blue or deep blue, are rather hesitant with the many new faces they see. Will they be repeating the mistakes of 2008?

There is still a case to be made for people to be selective in assigning their votes, even eliminating those they do not believe in, although this can wreak havoc with the transfer of preferences.

In the end, the only reason for pale blue voters to vote PN – one insufficiently emphasized during the campaign – is that PN means continuity and that PL, in promising change, means discontinuity. The country needs continuity, not discontinuity. PL has meanwhile been very careful not to tie itself to what change really means. In other words, just like in 1971, PN means gradualism and progression along the lines set in the past years while PL, once again, means changing the orientation of the country maybe 180 degrees.

To recap: this is a very incomplete and uncharted exploration of what motivates the people I have described as pale blue voters. I believe this is the largest segment of voters in Malta but, once again, I have no way to quantify that. And, as people who follow what I have been writing over the past years can tell, I share many of these pale blue voters dissatisfaction and indeed anger at an accident-prone Gonzi administration.

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