After weeks, if not months, of national uncertainty over the date of the election, Robert Abela left it till the very last day by which he could have gone to the country by the end of November to tell us the election will be held next year.
Many saw in this an everlasting tease. He was playing with us when he left the country uncertain on the day. Now, when he could delay no longer, he admitted that the election will be held next year. Some had been saying all along the election will be held in 2022, even when many pundits were putting their money on 2021. So this was all planned beforehand.
Others, including myself, see it differently. Abela indeed wanted to go in 2021 but saner minds must have persuaded him to postpone the date. Which is rather mysterious, after all the polls are predicting a massive win, maybe with a bigger margin than 2017.
A number of red herrings were thrown into the mix, especially the visit by the pope, now kicked down the road to 2022, by which we surmise anything from the second quarter onwards.
This will be Abela’s first election, so he will be more unsure of himself than anybody with a past experience. My argument today is that he may come to rue this delay, both if he had planned it all along or if the decision was forced upon him.
He and his party are now on top of the curve, anything further will see a decrease. There do not seem to be further votes to be squeezed out.
If anything, matters may turn nasty. Take Covid to begin with. With the highest number of jabs delivered, almost a European record, Malta can boast it has turned Covid into a manageable threat.
But all around us we can see countries facing the fourth or even the fifth wave of infections and our main tourists come from some of these countries, not just the UK now spiralling upwards, but also other countries, such as Russia, now in a new lockdown.
Although those who travel must exhibit the Green Pass which includes the mandatory double jabs, the danger is there and may get worse even though the country and the government deserve praise for what has been done so far.
More must be said about the state of the economy. Over the past months we have been seeing inflation rising, mainly driven by the price of oil, but not exclusively so. One argument for holding the election as early as possible was aimed at offsetting this rising spiral hoping the electorate would not have noticed this by the time they enter the polling booth.
Now inflation and rising prices will be at the centre of popular concern and energy prices in particular. The government has promised to shelter the consumers from this spike but nothing concrete has been announced so far, to my knowledge at least.
The government is weak where protection of the environment is concerned and every passing day brings with it a new scandal while the older ones remain all there, of course.
The government may rebut that ‘the others' did so too, and undoubtedly it is right, not least in including more ODZ areas to the development zone. But still we have long gone beyond the point of no return. The plans for a mammoth block of apartments in Xlendi Bay are a case in point.
As the election draws near pressure for jobs, promotions and the like will get more intense. The longer the date is delayed the more the pressure becomes. And what government can give becomes lesser, even if this government is a past master at creating jobs out of nowhere.
The people who vote Socialist do not do so, mainly because of socialist ideology but more to join the government gravy train. Those who wanted to jump aboard have long done so and those who have not done so will probably not do so now.
Once again the Opposition is basing its appeal on a protest vote which keeps getting stoked by new scandals emerging on a daily basis.
In 2017 such a stance did not persuade the majority of votes. This time, however, there are issues that have been pushed by Daphne Caruana Galizia and then there is her assassination of course.
The government is exhibiting a rather thin skin in this regard. When half a dozen activists decided to camp outside police headquarters (in the midst of a hurricane) as a sort of protest, the government could not think of a better response than unleashing its 'dog of war’ aka Karl Stagno Navarra on the party’s television station. Only then for the prime minister to have to censure the attacks (and for Minister Myriam Dalli to join in, having assisted without a word of warning the previous day).
The prime minister would have done better had he sent the protesters a warm dish from the Depot's kitchen and some warm bedding.
Robert Abela uses a cannon where a pistol would do, and a 70,000 majority where a lesser one would do. He has yet to learn from his unfortunate predecessor that massive majorities wouldn’t save your neck.
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