Today week, many will be glued to their news medium listening and looking for hints about the first trends of the electoral result, a result that will either confirm Malta’s fifth Prime Minster, or appoint Malta’s sixth Prime Minster since our country attained Independence in 1964.

Judgement day will send many into a frenzied analysis of what went right or wrong for the main political parties and their political campaigns, campaigns that started with energy being the major focus and which are coming to a close on the same topic, albeit for other reasons, which have ensured that it remains at the top of the general public’s agenda, or rather the media’s agenda.

This election campaign was the first of its kind for the Maltese as it has been fought primarily on social media. The real time with which information was broadcast and received by the general public is impressive and printed media is fast becoming a medium of the past, its appeal converted to a documental nature rather than an informative one. One cannot begin to perceive how the next election campaign will be fought out with information technology developing so fast. I grin today thinking of my early years in the seventies, when our former Prime Minister, Dom Mintoff, went on record stating that he wanted to keep computers out of offices out of fear that innovation would make people lose their jobs and be made redundant. What an error of judgement and how very ironic, considering the manner in which his own political party made use of computer technology in this campaign.

The campaign started with the Labour Party in full throttle and the Nationalist Party trudging behind; it was an eight-week plus campaign and yet, they did not seem to be in too much of a hurry. It did not take long however to see them in full campaign swing and today we can say that now the last electoral week has commenced we have experienced an intense campaign with both parties losing no media opportunity to promote or criticise the other’s stand.

Today it is up to us to weigh both campaigns and the messages that both parties tried to get across, to determine how convincing they were. It is our time to reflect. We have to put their respective campaigns in the perspective of each party’s electoral manifesto and decide what suits our country best, first and foremost, and what suits our families and us second.

We have witnessed debate upon debate with the same faces and somewhat repetitive arguments and political positions that at times made audiences frown and complain. As I have already lamented, the Broadcasting Authority schedule of political broadcasts need rethinking; it needs more spice and also politicians who are prepared to wander into unchartered territories and not stick to prepared texts, which are many times irrelevant to the debate and the questions being asked.

I felt that this time round, certain politicians and party representatives were even more arrogant and failed time and time again to answer questions that were fielded to them. Is it possible that they have not yet realised how badly this comes across to the non-political Joe Public who is watching it all unfold in front of him in the comfort of his home? What are the political parties public relations offices up to – just images, slogans and colours?

So we now have the last few days to make up our minds if we have not already done so; the last few days will inevitably see us subjected to a plethora of media attempts, through six mass meetings and numerous other coverages driving the message home.

One cannot deny that the parties have done their utmost to communicate with us; one cannot say that if we really are interested to find out the content they are proposing for the next legislature, we cannot find it. So it is ultimately all up to us now.

In truth this is all it should boil down to – the proposals being forwarded by the political parties; how we believe these will affect our county and us personally and whether we will be better off with one or the other; which party is more credible and in a position to deliver the programme which will ensure that this country weathers the economic storms that lie ahead.

It’s time for us to reflect, just our conscience and us. This country is too small to make mistakes; the Italian experience last week is an eye opener for all of us who want to think about our future rather than just follow like sheep.

Ultimately it is not about image, but about the economy. It is time to reflect on our future without emotion, keeping only facts in mind. By next week it will be all over; the moment of truth is now. Consider all well – five years is not a short time to live through a mistake.