When Strategy Caves in

Di-ve.com

You must be blind if you cannot see how the PN election strategy caved in following the referendum of 8th March 2003.

Just reading their electoral manifesto, one is left with no doubt about it. The PN do not even have a manifesto. They had difficulty in putting one together. They had to fill 30 glossy pages with, artwork, visuals and big type face. Content is just not there.

There are hardly any measures or programmes in it; just platitudes about how EU membership will solve all our faults and how life will be a bed of roses after 1st May 2004. The basic content of their manifesto could have been said in a single sentence

“the PN based all their strategy on simply breezing their way past the referendum, leaving the MLP with an expired policy platform and than dancing their way through the election campaign for a comfortable election win to be celebrated in Greece on April 16th.”

MALTA UNDER A NEW PN GOVERNMENT WILL JOIN THE EU IN MEMBERSHIP ON 1ST MAY 2004 WHATEVER THE COST OR CONSEQUENCES AND THE EU WILL AUTOMICALLY BE A SOLUTION TO ALL OUR PROBLEMS.

The PN are trying to make the election a mere extension of the referendum. They want this to be again a single issue contest. They are clearly failing.

Failing because the referendum result they took for granted came in very short of their minimum expectations. They were so sure that they could get a comfortable overall majority of all eligible vote that they did not mind whatever stand Labour chose for the referendum.

The election date of April 12th was set by the EU who were not accepting candidates countries to sign the accession treaty on April 16th unless their government had a mandate long enough to ensure they will be there on 1st May 2004. The referendum date of March 8th was set by the PN government as the latest date that allowed the minimum term for an election campaign.

Little did the PN government care that by March 8th the Treaty was still in draft form and not translated into Maltese. Little did they care they that during the little time between Copenhagen and the referendum date it was not possible to cascade the information to the roots of the population to ensure that they knew what they were voting for or against.

What they cared was that the short time permitted the organisation of a media bombardment to make the individual feel bad if he or she was, seemingly, the only one that was against government proposal to vote YES. What they cared about was that the time was long enough to get on board 31 organisations dominated by PN friendly officials and to ‘buy’ the support of the few influential organisation who were not so dominated. The only disappointment they had was with the GWU. They failed to persuade the GWU to adopt, at least, a neutral stand. Clearly there was no price for the GWU support.

So the PN based all their strategy on simply breezing their way past the referendum, leaving the MLP with an expired policy platform and than dancing their way through the election campaign for a comfortable election win to be celebrated inGreece on April 16th.

“if you have difficulty in spotting the PN election strategy don’t change your glasses. Their strategy simply caved in.”

They were wrong. Oh so wrong! Clearly they did not heed my warning in my book MALTA EU RELATIONS: A PRACTICAL WAY FORWARD that was published in 1999 where I made the point strongly that the PN strategy will fail as support for the EU will fail when most needed, during the referendum.

The shock was all visible on their faces during the first two hours of counting the referendum votes. They were clearly shocked that the outright overall majority they took for granted was just not there. The best they could come up with after accepting the stark reality was a Let’s Pretend affair. They pretended a victory counting only the valid votes.

How on earth could they pretend that Labour would, on the basis of a contest counting only the valid votes, offer their followers and their leaders the facility of constructively abstaining. Do they think that Labour could be so stupid as to think they can win a straight yes or no contest without getting out their vote? The PN could not even convince themselves with these arguments.

Leading IVA personalities admitted that a large portion of the abstainers/invalidators were following MLP constructive abstention policy and therefore the real difference of the YES and the NO camp was in terms of low decimal points on either side which was not clearly identifiable.

Had the PN truly won the referendum you could probably still see and hear the carcades dancing their way through the election campaign. But it was not to be. The PN played a ‘winner takes all’ strategy and as they lost they are finding themselves in an election campaign without a strategy.

Whilst Labour has widened its campaign to talk in very specific terms on the problems which afflict the daily lives of our citizens, depicting the problems and offering practical and realistic solutions, the PN have no option but to consider their campaign as an extension of the referendum. They are trying to force a failed proposal on an electorate that has clearly lost appetite for EU rhetoric and is more interested in messages closer to the reality of their daily struggle through life.

The killer swoop was given by Labour’s proposal to hold a serious mid-term referendum which will be the final say on the issue. Labour supporters that voted IVA have been given all the reason to vote Labour in the election. Because such Laboursupporters, more than others, can understand that even if we are to say IVA to EU membership it would be best to say it after addressing our home-made economic faults which would deprive us from competing successfully in the EU. And they just as well understand that we should only say IVA after we know what our position will be in the context of an EU that is minded to adopt a new constitution, replacing all treaties, which is still being drafted and discussed.

So if you have difficulty in spotting the PN election strategy don’t change your glasses. Their strategy simply caved in. Hence why they have to continually react to Labour’s initiatives. Hence why they are constrained to interpret Labour’smanifesto in the weirdest sense trying to see images of wage freezes and cuts in social services which exist only in their rotten mind. They have been forced to star-gaze and imagine what their mind wants them to see and continually scare-monger that Alfred Sant has turned into a tyrant taking Labour back to its past violent vices.

When the PN are in this mood they are like a cornered rat. Expect the worst to come from them and expect their dirty tricks department to work overtime.

Alfred Mifsud