During this campaign for elections to the European Parliament, as well as during that for the last general elections, the general view has been that the best tool with which to get messages across, both for candidates and for political parties, was supplied by the social media. This is especially so if a campaign is being run on national lines.

As of now, results show that those who hold such a view are correct. Social media give a direct, immediate and personalised access to voters. To those who go for a sophisticated approach to its management, it also provides a method for the structuring of messages according to the type of person one is trying to reach. Other benefits accrue from its use.

While recognizing all these points and more, I still continue to believe that the most effective tool remains the face to face contact between candidates and voters. It is during such meetings, like during house visits, that one gets to know truly how citizens live their daily lives.

Still, people will tell you quite rightly: It is impossible to carry out house visits that cover all voters – so how do you choose where to go? And: It has become quite difficult to find visiting times during a given day during which you stand a good chance to find most people at home.

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Pensioners

I met pensioners who were quick to appreciate how the present government was the first to take care to increase their pension. And that it also introduced further measures meant to help them financially. They praised the government for this.

But also – especially among pensioners in the lower brackets – one gets comments about how they do not feel sufficiently protected against inflationary pressures, not least for products that they require on a day to day basis. They hope for more assistance and await the government to implement promises made in this regard.

I could understand their concern better after having spoken to an old man who introduced himself while out walking. His pension comes close to 650 euros a month and according to his account, despite the recent improvements, more than once he found he could not stretch it over a whole month.

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May Day

This year May Day got caught in the wash of campaign politics. Inevitably  celebrations reflected the drift of campaign messages. Meanwhile a controversy erupted about whether the Labour Party is socialist or not. On the one hand, its adversaries claimed that the LP had “again become” socialist, and in the same breath came their criticism that it was no longer socialist.

Such contradictions have become typical of the way by which the right in Malta articulates its policies. In fact, Labour approaches were and remain socialist in scope. Only, what has happened is that the Labour message has been adapted to cover today’s requirements in today’s situation: the so-called free market needs to be managed in a manner that allows the fast creation of wealth, followed by its fair distribution among the different sections of the people. In addition, in Malta this is being done in a framework designed to promote a widening of personal freedoms and liberties.