Speculation is rife that Prime Minister Robert Abela will announce the election today or tomorrow.

It is his last chance if an election is to be held next month. If that doesn’t happen, the PM would likely dissolve Parliament after Pope Francis’ visit in April and an election would be held in late May or early June.

If rumours that the gap between the Labour Party and the Nationalist Party has narrowed down to 25,000 votes are to be believed, then this would be a valid reason for the PM to call the election now.

And, according to reports, both parties are in top gear, both leaders demanding that their MPs and candidates rally behind their leaders for today’s Sunday sermons.

Whatever the case, we already have a clear idea of what the electoral campaign will look like. And it promises to be a dirty campaign, perhaps dirtier than usual.

The Prime Minister is under fire over his past involvement with Christian Borg, a man who now stands charged with kidnapping and fraud. What we have learnt so far seems to be only the tip of the iceberg, with a PN MP alleging this week that millions of euros in fines were wiped off the Lesa system with the involvement of top government officials.

The information has been passed on to the police and, if things go as they should, there will be a police investigation and maybe even a magisterial inquiry. Government will want to get the election business over and done with before more dirt emerges from this particular scandal.

Other members of Abela’s Cabinet are embroiled in major scandals. Despite what the Prime Minister says, the case involving tourism minister Clayton Bartolo and his girlfriend is far from closed. Stories are emerging daily about this abusive behaviour and the apparent attempt at a cover-up.

This week it also emerged that agriculture minister Anton Refalo, a known admirer of the fine arts, has in his possession a piece of protected heritage – a British-era milestone – which is sat by his swimming pool. In a statement that was curiously issued by the Labour Party rather than the government, Refalo said he was denying all accusations, but nowhere did he say that he does not own such an artifact. After all, the photos have already been plastered on social media.

As we have become accustomed to, the Labour Party has resorted to deflection tactics and is busy trying to invent a scandal on the Opposition Leader in order to draw the media’s attention away from its own transgressions. Last week, PN leader Bernard Grech revealed that a drone had been sent to film his Mosta home, in a clear breach of the right to privacy.

When questioned about the incident, the PM said he was totally unaware of the case and said a politician’s privacy should be respected. Abela would be credible had he not spoken about the story a couple of hours before Grech reported the drone filming his house. The PM, in fact, had just told journalists to follow his interview on TVM, during which he would speak about “Grech’s Mosta villa with swimming pool that he bought while declaring earnings of €6,000 a year”.

Effectively, Abela threw the stone and then tried to deny the fact.

On the other hand, the PN, knowing that it is trailing far behind Labour even if it has made some progress, has gone into overdrive and is trying to take the biggest possible mileage out of each of these scandals. The party is holding two to three press conferences a day, mostly in reaction to news stories about the government.

Last week, it latched on to the news of Abela’s €17,000 Planning Authority retainer. Obviously, it forgot to mention that the original contract to Abela’s legal firm was given by a Nationalist government.

Now it has shifted its focus to the relationship between Abela and suspected kidnapper Borg.

Its media arm has adopted a rather aggressive stance and wants to give the impression that Abela personally cashed in the €17k cheques and went for daily coffee dates with Borg. This is clearly an exaggeration of the facts but, unfortunately, it’s what we are used to in the months and weeks leading to a general election.

And these tactics are used by the Labour media too. In fact, both PN and PL media treat their audiences like idiots more than they usually do during such times.

We can safely say that this behaviour will not subside during the coming weeks. In fact, it will only get worse. This will not be a civil campaign.

To the contrary, it will be an aggressive campaign fought between a party that wants to retain its 35,000-vote advantage, and a party that is desperate to close the gap, even if by a little bit, in order to remain relevant.