As tempted as I was to torture myself, last week I purposely didn’t watch the live debate between the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition on Xarabank. A few days later, however, I watched a recording of it because I thought that, having the option to forward, pause and throw up whenever the need arose, would keep my arteries from popping.

I was wrong.

Even with the option of whizzing through the boring, childish, idiotic, predictable and baseless parts, the whole farce still managed to get me hot under the collar.

My blood pressure rose to dangerous levels, not because I wasn’t expecting a pathetic level of argumentation but because, following the last general election, this debate was the strongest and most startling reminder of how our two-party system is screwing our country.

The quality (or rather lack) of such debates is a loud and clear reminder of how our archaic electoral system – a system that keeps making it impossible for a third or even a fourth party to get into parliament – is doing a ginormous disservice to our democracy.

It was only Arnold Cassola’s 10-minute appearance (as well as Peppi losing his cool with the happy clappers) that stopped me from throwing a knife at the TV and screaming bloody murder.

Just as expected, Muscat and Busuttil spent most of their time snapping at each other’s throats and interrupting each other. They reminded me of those unhappily married couples who live in the security of knowing that, no matter how badly they screw up, neither of them is going anywhere.

Just like bad students in a class of even worse students, the two parties have figured out that they only need to be (or, rather, come across as being) a tad cleverer, a tad less dishonest and a tad quicker than their peers, in order to make it through with flying colours.

With Busuttil trying to defend 25 years of a government that he had very little to do with, and Muscat strategically digging into places he knows hurt the Nationalists during the last election, the whole debate quickly became a tit for tat, death-by-comparison comedy.

Muscat threw ‘direct orders’ and ‘arloggi tal-Lira’ at Busuttil’s head, whilst Busuttil threw ‘electricity pardons’ and ‘meritocracy’ at Muscat’s bruised ego.

Yawn!

And in the meantime, the voter became none the wiser and, as per usual, even less spoilt for choice. The saddest thing is that even though an entire arsenal of dirty weapons was brought out of the closet, neither of them tried hard enough to convince with real facts, figures and convincing arguments. Their so-called blows were cushioned and disguised behind crass jibes, which I know the Maltese love, but do nothing for the country in the long run.

But when Alternattiva Demokratika chairman Arnold Cassola was brought in, the difference in style was almost blinding. Clearly, the guy has nothing to lose, has no interest in brown-nosing either Muscat or Busuttil and has no hope of glory in the Maltese Parliament, so he says it just the way he thinks it is. He hit one side then the other, then the other one again and as soon as you thought that he was going to take a side, he turned to push the other way once again.

During those 10 minutes, both Busuttil and Muscat were on their toes and at their weakest. Up until Cassola’s appearance, Busuttil was constantly warning the Prime Minister, telling him to “be careful” about this and that, reminiscent of the scaremongering tactics the Nationalists used prior to the election. But then, towards the end of Cassola’s speech, it was the PM who was telling Cassola to “be careful”, again sending a shiver down my spine with the ‘loaded’ warning.

In just under 10 minutes, Cassola called Muscat and Busuttil “children” and offered each of them a pacifier and a nappy. This was the only self-indulgent comment that Cassola parted with and, of course, Peppi told him off for it. But Cassola swiftly moved on to pushing both the PM and Simon Busuttil to divulge their positions on what matters to the people. He pushed them for a position on spring hunting, irregular immigration and party financing, making those 10 minutes the most informative and useful – at least to me. But Cassola wasn’t done yet. Still within his 10 minutes, he even managed to explain the crucial difference between the Nationalist’s objections to the Citizenship scheme and those of Alternattiva Demokratika.

He can do this because AD is the only party that can afford – and has the guts – to call a spade a spade. Unlike the Opposition in a two-party system, a third party is not afraid to agree with the administration when it feels that it should, and at the same time has no qualms in disagreeing when it needs to.

Unfortunately, because of Cassola’s final words, which came across as a strong stance against the PM, many argue that Arnold Cassola’s place is within the Nationalist party, but Cassola is right where he should be – right there in the middle, saying it like it is. The only thing that should change is not the party he represents but his chances of getting AD into parliament. But, of course, this is not in the interests of either of the two big parties, because if it did happen, they would actually have to convince and debate like adults.