June is here and June means summer and summer in Malta can be quite an experience. Not that we are in any way wanting of blue cloudless skies during any season of the year, but our dazzling summer dawns and spectacular sunsets, separated seamlessly by the bright mornings, scorching lazy  afternoons and bewitching twilights, make Malta and Gozo doubly enchanting at this time of year. 

The magic is heavily spiced up by the packed cultural calendar that colours our social landscape at this time of year. From boisterous village festas to historical re-enactments, to beach parties and theatre productions, our islands party relentlessly and round the clock throughout this bright season. Come September, the islands will be exhausted and in dire need of some rest and gabra... but only for a short time, for the autumn allure snatches our attention with its balmy calm, only to give way imperceptibly to the starker moods that winter damp creates, which are in turn instantly lit up by the blinding Christmas brightness.

And there it goes again the whole seasonal cycle reminiscent of our own life clocks which tick away mercilessly... hacking at what is left of our life day in day out... Minute in minute out... and constantly putting into question the rationality, if any, of how we choose to spend our time, our energy, our lives.

For many of us directly or indirectly embroiled in the making of local political history, these past few days have been a time of reckoning and of questioning  of the futility or otherwise of the role we are playing in local politics and the mapping out of our country's present and future. The temptation to just stay put and redirect the positive energy spent in an active political life to a more instantly gratifying pastime becomes huge. The even bigger temptation to just quit and enjoy the more enriching simple beauties of life completely out of the public eye, clawed at our consciousness with renewed verve... and I am fully aware that I’m using the word “we” because being part of a triumphant Moviment Laburista does not exonerate me from constantly keeping in mind that we have a very strong government and a totally demolished opposition. 

I was born in 1966, in a staunch Labour family, so I lived through the 1970s and early 1980s within the “protected” section of the Maltese society that was then. Yet I could not but observe what unbridled use of power can do to people's lives and what the herd instinct lets people accept as a way of life. I know that Joseph Muscat has so far proven himself as a brilliant strategist and rational leader, but the rising acceptance of clientelism as a way to maintain a powerbase and the ever-increasing centralisation of power and decisions, reminds me more and more of those times.

Not that PN governments were much better in that regard. The only difference is that now it’s blatant, in your face and will soon become an accepted norm when it certainly shouldn't be, and not just because we promised a different kind of politics.

We each vote alone with our individual mind, one at a time and not as a population en masse. As long as there are no ideological divides, or monumental national issues that threaten our way of life, as there were in 1987 when the first Maltese popular movement was created,  come next general election people will vote on how good their state of wellbeing is and how likely the person/party they are voting for can guarantee it.

The main political parties will not be fighting electoral campaigns on grand issues any more. The massive movement which will be much bigger in four years will sway according to credibility of the individuals and leaders making up the respective political parties. Joseph Muscat built his current movement by enticing respected and credible individuals to his fold who in turn used their trust factor built over years of professional or community life to convince people to at least give the new leader a chance.

This obvious but important observation should guide the new PN Leader towards his starting point, because start afresh he must , and before he even contemplates on starting afresh, he has to clean sweep any one in his ranks whose mere face puts into question any credibility the New PN is set to build. 

Meanwhile as I watch closely the further metamorphosis of the Gigantic Labour movement into the real peoples' powerhouse, it will be interesting to watch how many credible, strong willed Maltese and Gozitans will be brave enough to go back to their fold of origin at a time when the Nationalist Party is at its lowest ebb and the Labour Movement seems totally unassailable.

I did that for my Labour Party in 2004 when PN was at its strongest, and Labour was on its knees but had accepted full EU membership as its foreign policy. At that time my little insignificant move was simply observed and almost derided. It was taboo to state that political parties evolve and that they shift left or right and that I had become more comfortable in an MLP dead set to renew itself in the proper direction rather than in an all powerful party in government which for all its economic and other glories was closing in on itself and starting to treat people like dubbien.

In any case, one thing is certain....There are interesting times ahead and try as I might to take my friends' advice to shut up and sunbathe all day, I know that I will do precisely the opposite. There is nothing like a good challenge to inject more life into life.