The biggest losers in this Local Council Elections were The Times and Joseph Muscat. The first because it failed to read the statistics well.The second for having let the political gap between him and the PN to be shortened by half.
Last Friday, The Times carried an article predicting a disastrous defeat for the Nationalist Party. The predictions were totally false.
The reason for this wrong analysis comes from the fact those who were commenting on the turnouts did not give much consideration to the voting patterns in each and every locality. Instead, they looked at the votes from a district level. This analysis was possible to make because of the referendum vote which coincided with that of the Local Councils. The fact that a referendum was held could have helped in the making of a good analysis. This could occur in particular, if one studied the voting patterns in the localities where both the spring hunting referendum and the Local Council elections were held.
Studying this particular turnout could reveal much about the claim being made that firstthe strong intervention of Joseph Muscat in last week’s campaign in favour of the 'yes' vote was the main reason for the hunters’ victory. Secondly, that one can predicted the results of the Local Council elections from this victory.
In a nutshell, one can describe the turnout as follows: in the traditional Nationalist localities, the percentage of those individuals who went out to vote for the referendum was the same as that of the Local Council elections.
The situation was different in the Labour localities. The turnout for thehunting referendum was in general higher than that of the Local Councils. This means that there is a percentage of persons in these Labour localities whovoted in the referendum but refused to cast their vote for the LocalCouncil. I consider this to be to the detriment of Labour. The Local Council results proved my point. In Malta, Labour registered a decrease in its traditional strongholds. On the other hand, the PN marked inroads in the South. A number of Labour voters abstained. Thus, the South did not appreciate Labour’s position on hunting. But the real reason for the South abstention is even deeper than that.
This can be proven by the fact that there were strong Labour localities like Bormla where the turnout was extremely low in the referendum vote. Then there were localities like Santa Lucija and Paola where the turnout was high, still Labour registered a decrease. As the Italians would say this was 'unavittoriadimezzata' for Muscat.
Siggiewi was another case. Here the situation was the opposite. Siggiewi experienced an increase in the turnout of voters compared with the previous local council election. The person who did the analysis for The Times took this to mean, that the pro-hunting lobby and Robert Musumeci were going to change the locality to a Labour majority. The contrary happened. The PN increased its share of votes and this happened irrespective to hunting. In fact, when there is a strong turnout in a locality, and the turnout is stronger than the previous one, this goes in favour of the incumbent. In this case, it went in favour of the current major Dr. Carol Aquilina. The number of votes he got speak volume and prove my point.
On a political level, this referendum has re-opened the political game for the Nationalist Party. The Nationalist Party is succeeding to return again to the forefront of local politics sooner than predicted or expected.
For Muscat, it should serve him as a time for reflections. The so-called mnemonic warriors that he had recruited from the Nationalists side are now having the contrary effect on his party. They are the cause for his precipitous decline. At least, their presence in the Labour Party has united genuine Labourites and Nationalists to despite those leaders who support these so-called turncoats.
In a democracy, no political actor can achieve full hegemony. Politicians can only come close to dominate the public sphere. Muscat achieved this by tightly controlling the political story. But this result showed how volatile this political perception is. To get there, Muscat needed political warriors from the opposite camp whose job was to depict his political rivalsas bleak and outdated. Once power was achieved, there was no need for these types of warriors. Instead, he continued to recruit new ones. This happened after the PN had learned their lesson in the EU elections after their disastrous performance for having recruiting past political dinosaurs. The problem for Joseph Muscat is now how he is going to silence them. If he fails, his chances to win the next general elections are in great peril.