The vast majority of Malta is still binary: black/white, blue/red, Labour/PN. Ours/theirs. We reason in Manicheistic hues – the saved v the damned. You have to be on one side and against the other side. Sitting on the fence is not allowed.

We have been like this since the end of World War II, no, actually before that: we were binary even in the 1930s when the two poles were the Nationalists and the Constitutionalists. After the war, they became Nationalists v Labour.

There were a few times when others tried to creep in, but their efforts came to naught. The template soon reverted to form and the big feud continued.

It is a feud, no less, carried on by generation after generation, families align themselves on either side and even in today’s asymmetric world family traditions still hold strong and new generations follow the example of the generations before them.

Of course, this ingrained tradition does allow for change, otherwise one party will always be in power and the other party will always be in Opposition. That change occurs can be due either to policy mistakes (like Alfred Sant in 1998) or to people switching from one side to the other.

Over the past four years, we used to think that PL’s 36,000 majority in 2013 was made of switchers. Actually, the majority is made up of 18,000 voters who swung from PN to PL. Considering that the PL’s core is more like 35 per cent of the electorate, the number of switchers will have been greater than 18,000.

Joseph Muscat has now taken to speak about the second half of a Labour decade. According to him, the first legislature, five years minus a year because of an early election, constitutes the first half. The game is not over yet, and the second half still has to be played. Mistakes committed in the first half can be corrected in the second.

This near to election day, he is clearly portraying the current Labour administration as a two-legislature one, hinting that he will consider his time in harness as done over two terms.

Whether the game will run on to a second half will only be seen after 3 June. However, my point today is that it might as easily run into a third half. Or call it extra-time, if you want.

For almost a century, we have lived in a ‘winner takes all’ situation where the winner sweeps everything in sight – power, government, appointments, honours, the lot, and the loser gets nothing. As I will be explaining in the coming weeks, the power structure in Malta is more like an elected dictatorship than many realise. This situation stares us in the face yet few realise it.

Hence the trepidation that is felt by those who think their side will lose: for them the election means the end of their hopes, their dreams. They stand to become non-citizens, numbers without meaning.

But we are now living in changed times, changed circumstances and the binary outlook that is supported and strengthened by our institutions – first of all in broadcasting – is on the way out, like it has been in other countries.

Let us be concrete about the circumstances of 2017: whatever the election result will be, the innumerable libel cases will still have to go on till they reach conclusion. The election result, whatever it will be, will not tell the country who is right – Daphne Caruana Galizia or Dr Joseph Muscat. The election will only tell us what the majority of citizens believe, not who is right or wrong, nor what the truth is or not.

But this issue, though very important (it will remain important whatever the election results) is not the only one that awaits resolution from something other than the election result. There are other issues that will not be solved by the election results and which may also become even more important after the election (especially if Labour wins).

The English-speaking media reported last week, but not the Maltese-language media it seems, that last week North Rhine-Westphalia Finance Minister Norbert Walter-Borjans claimed that his ministry has been handed a database of all companies registered in Malta and found that some 2,000 of them have German principals connected to many well-known German firms. He said he wants to investigate this fully since there is suspicion that these companies may be using Malta (he called Malta the Panama of the Mediterranean) to avoid paying taxes in Germany.

Minister Edward Scicluna was prompt to rebut this and claimed it was all a spin – after all North Rhine-Westphalia has its state election today – but it will only be the foolish who believe this story will disappear with today’s election, or ours. That’s not how the Germans work. They managed to recoup due taxes even from Switzerland.

This is not a spin-off from the Malta election, nor from the MEP corner. The investigation will continue, election or no election.

As will the PANA inquiry in the European Parliament, whether Joseph Muscat and/or Keith Schembri attend the next hearing on 18 May or not. Nor will it end with the general election.

Malta’s reputation, given the numerous scandals that have emerged over the past months, has been dealt a heavy blow in the financial services sector. This comes at a time when the eurozone is tightening its anti-money laundering and anti-tax evasion structures. There are various initiatives afoot to tighten up legislation and to promote EU-wide legislation in the taxation sector. Malta has so far stood against more legislation but it has lost its former ally, the UK, and the current spate of scandals may have further weakened our stance.

The first European Council to welcome Emmanuel Macron will be held soon after the Maltese election. Somewhere in the august halls of Brussels there will no doubt be comments on this aborted Maltese presidency, which still two months to go. The EU might be slow-moving but it forgets nothing and gets there, in the end. Ask Orban.

The international reactions are but one of the reactions that do not depend on the outcome of the elections. As happened in France last Monday, there may also be reactions out on the streets after the declaration of the winner. That’s another possible event for the third half.

People of my age still remember the elections of the 1970s and 1980s when the ‘winner takes all’ syndrome was at its worst. Thanks to the EU, the European Court of Human Rights, international public opinion but no thanks to Maltese public opinion that seems not to have matured, the 1970s and 1980s traumas have lessened.

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