We’re nearly at the end of a grueling election campaign, the longest one since the 1987 election which then took three months.

This time, it was nine weeks long, but it seems that we have been in this mode for much longer, even considering that Parliament met for the last time on 10 December and the date for the election was announced soon after the vote on the budget was shot down.

The parties have been battling it out right from the start, and we expect no less in the last four days of the campaign.

Last time round, the last week of the campaign was characterized by the Mistra scandal. This time, it does not look likely that any of the two parties has something up their sleeve. The Nationalist Party has dispelled rumours that it will reveal a story involving the personal life of Labour leader Joseph Muscat who, in his own turn, has repeated over and over again that the PL wants to lead a positive campaign and any story erupting from Labour would backfire at this stage.

The people are set to make their decision at the end of this week. Some 2,000 have already voted on Saturday as they will not be on the island on 9 March. This leads us to say that, once again, another five years have passed and we are nowhere near having a more modern way of voting.

Both parties continue to say that we should come to a point where people are allowed to vote in embassies abroad, and would therefore not need to be flown over on cheap flights by Air Malta. It has also been said that there will come a time when people will be allowed to vote electronically, but this has not materialized yet.

The last days of the campaign will be jam-packed with activities in a bid for the parties to win the last available votes. By this time, most people would have made up their mind on which party to vote, but we are sure that there will be last-ditch attempt to bring in the few remaining undecided voters in the fold.

Both parties have promised many things to the electorate, but we believe that these will do little to sway anyone one way or the other. It is the overall picture that counts.

The Nationalist Party says that change just for the sake of it is not good for the country. Naturally, the Labour Party is all for this change.

We now have to see who of them has been the more convincing.