The Malta Independent on Sunday
Strange things happened during the election campaign for yesterday`s EP and local elections. Their significance goes far beyond the election results that will come out next week.
Let`s start with the unusual, but not so strange. Alternattiva Demokratika (AD) put together at their best campaign ever. In acknowledgement that people are more likely to shift their voting preferences at mid-term elections rather at general glections, AD must have considered the EP election a do or die for its survival and development.` They were clever in posting a single candidate to focus their effort on one face and one name. They even cashed in handsomely on the unfair onslaught by the PN regarding the abortion issue which most considered as scraping the religious barrel by the PN. It made AD look like the underdog that needs protection from the unfair treatment of their big brothers.
In the early part of the campaign the PN seemed more interested in cutting AD to size rather than to address their traditional MLP opponents. Somewhere along the way the PN must have realised that so much focus on AD was probably serving them as good publicity increasing the size of the defection from PN to AD.
Wednesday evening I went to watch a movie at St James Cavalier and having some spare minutes before the movie I crossed over to the Upper Barrakka to enjoy the serenity and the view.` It was not to be. There was a staged activity going on and I found myself at the fringes of a sizeable crowd when I realized that it was a promo event for AD. As I hurriedly sneaked out, not to raise anybody`s hope of an additional vote defected from the traditional camps, I could not but register that this time AD was indeed making an all out effort, with no evident need to economise on the cost of the campaign.
Do they stand a chance of winning the fifth seat, I asked myself.` Maths tells me it is unlikely even though AD will register a much improved performance over the general election outturn.` Competing with the whole territory considered as one district would probably change AD`s fortunes in a general election. But in the EP elections where only 5 candidates would be elected AD would have to secure original and inherited preferences of nearly 17% of the valid votes cast to elect their candidate. This is the same threshold they would need to elect a candidate in any district in a general election. The barrier is still too high for AD to score tangible result. A sixth seat would have reduce that barrier to around 14% - not quite easy but more do-able.
If AD don`t get the fifth seat much less would it be possible for in independents to stand any chance. Many of them have an appeal to niche sectors. But whilst I am sure many sympathise with several aspects of what these independents stand for, most would have been put-off by the brashness and the rude intensity with which they exposed their causes during the campaign, often showing towards others the same intolerance they complained of for themselves. I would very much doubt whether if their collective votes were tacked on to AD`s they would collectively have made it for the sixth seat.
Which probably means that the fifth seat will go to one of the main political parties who should easily share the first four seats and fight it out for the fifth one. Would it go to the PN for the sake of continuity or would it cross over to the MLP in a clear message to MLP that the people wanted to vote it in government at last elections but were forced not to by Labour themselves when they made EU membership and a Labour government mutually exclusive?
Surveys published by Xarabank indicate clearly that the size of defection from the PN`s side is bound to be more sizeable than any defection from the MLP. So indications are that the advantage that the PN had over MLP at last elections will disappear and the fifth seat is up for grabs till the last vote. I would not at all be amazed if what makes a difference is whether those who defect from the PN to vote AD would continue with their preference on the PN thus swinging back these votes into the PN`s fold once AD have their good run but fail to make it to the finish.
But on the basis of their campaign the PN certainly do not deserve the third seat. They had one of their worst campaigns ever.` It was half-hearted, relying solely on the media without the usual capillarity at grass roots level to stimulate enthusiasm and get out the vote.
But even their media management lacked the near perfection typical of when EFA was in charge and RCC used to manage the media. The strange things that happened are too evident to go unnoticed. Was it co-incidental that the Malta Employers Association presented a report to the MCESD proposing 'rundown' of 12000 heads from central government employment? Or was it orchestrated by factions more interested in foisting a bad show on the new PM on his first electoral outing rather in seeing their Party do well?
I remember that when in 1997 the group of seven wise men had presented a report to the then Labour government proposing a much more socially responsible way for shifting excess labour in central government (in numbers much smaller than 12000) to the private productive sector, the PN kept harping on it for 12 months till the pre-mature 1998 elections making it sound as if Labour has already approved the vicious plan, and was only waiting for the elections to pass to start throwing civil servants out on the road.
Was it co-incidental that in the week prior to the elections a senior minister threatened in parliament to close down the shipyards if they can`t be run in black` Was it co-incidental that in the two weeks before the election the Times showed untypical interest in exposing the alleged scandal involving the Foreign Affairs Ministers using his weighty influence with foreign government organisations to favour family business interests?
My conclusion is that the calm that EFA used to impose whilst the Party focuses on the electoral objective was this time completely missing and factions were more interested in embarrassing the new PM to weaken his still fragile hold on the Party. The PM replied with the clear roman dictum `mors tua vita mea`.
This cannot be a good omen either for the fortunes of the PN in these elections as well as for what to expect thereafter.
Does this mean that the third seat could lean Labour`s way? Quite possibly so but Labour`s success should not be measured by winning or losing the third seat. It should be measured by the progress, or lack of it, in the percentage of first count votes. If no solid progress now that the PN have so much going against them, then when?
Strange things happened during the election campaign for yesterday`s EP and local elections. Their significance goes far beyond the election results that will come out next week. Let`s start with the unusual, but not so strange. Alternattiva Demokratika (AD) put together at their best campaign ever. In acknowledgement that people are more likely to shift their voting preferences at mid-term elections rather at general glections, AD must have considered the EP election a do or die for its survival and development.` They were clever in posting a single candidate to focus their effort on one face and one name. They even cashed in handsomely on the unfair onslaught by the PN regarding the abortion issue which most considered as scraping the religious barrel by the PN. It made AD look like the underdog that needs protection from the unfair treatment of their big brothers.
In the early part of the campaign the PN seemed more interested in cutting AD to size rather than to address their traditional MLP opponents. Somewhere along the way the PN must have realised that so much focus on AD was probably serving them as good publicity increasing the size of the defection from PN to AD.
Wednesday evening I went to watch a movie at St James Cavalier and having some spare minutes before the movie I crossed over to the Upper Barrakka to enjoy the serenity and the view.` It was not to be. There was a staged activity going on and I found myself at the fringes of a sizeable crowd when I realized that it was a promo event for AD. As I hurriedly sneaked out, not to raise anybody`s hope of an additional vote defected from the traditional camps, I could not but register that this time AD was indeed making an all out effort, with no evident need to economise on the cost of the campaign.
Do they stand a chance of winning the fifth seat, I asked myself.` Maths tells me it is unlikely even though AD will register a much improved performance over the general election outturn.` Competing with the whole territory considered as one district would probably change AD`s fortunes in a general election. But in the EP elections where only 5 candidates would be elected AD would have to secure original and inherited preferences of nearly 17% of the valid votes cast to elect their candidate. This is the same threshold they would need to elect a candidate in any district in a general election. The barrier is still too high for AD to score tangible result. A sixth seat would have reduce that barrier to around 14% - not quite easy but more do-able.
If AD don`t get the fifth seat much less would it be possible for in independents to stand any chance. Many of them have an appeal to niche sectors. But whilst I am sure many sympathise with several aspects of what these independents stand for, most would have been put-off by the brashness and the rude intensity with which they exposed their causes during the campaign, often showing towards others the same intolerance they complained of for themselves. I would very much doubt whether if their collective votes were tacked on to AD`s they would collectively have made it for the sixth seat.
Which probably means that the fifth seat will go to one of the main political parties who should easily share the first four seats and fight it out for the fifth one. Would it go to the PN for the sake of continuity or would it cross over to the MLP in a clear message to MLP that the people wanted to vote it in government at last elections but were forced not to by Labour themselves when they made EU membership and a Labour government mutually exclusive?
Surveys published by Xarabank indicate clearly that the size of defection from the PN`s side is bound to be more sizeable than any defection from the MLP. So indications are that the advantage that the PN had over MLP at last elections will disappear and the fifth seat is up for grabs till the last vote. I would not at all be amazed if what makes a difference is whether those who defect from the PN to vote AD would continue with their preference on the PN thus swinging back these votes into the PN`s fold once AD have their good run but fail to make it to the finish.
But on the basis of their campaign the PN certainly do not deserve the third seat. They had one of their worst campaigns ever.` It was half-hearted, relying solely on the media without the usual capillarity at grass roots level to stimulate enthusiasm and get out the vote.
But even their media management lacked the near perfection typical of when EFA was in charge and RCC used to manage the media. The strange things that happened are too evident to go unnoticed. Was it co-incidental that the Malta Employers Association presented a report to the MCESD proposing 'rundown' of 12000 heads from central government employment? Or was it orchestrated by factions more interested in foisting a bad show on the new PM on his first electoral outing rather in seeing their Party do well?
I remember that when in 1997 the group of seven wise men had presented a report to the then Labour government proposing a much more socially responsible way for shifting excess labour in central government (in numbers much smaller than 12000) to the private productive sector, the PN kept harping on it for 12 months till the pre-mature 1998 elections making it sound as if Labour has already approved the vicious plan, and was only waiting for the elections to pass to start throwing civil servants out on the road.
Was it co-incidental that in the week prior to the elections a senior minister threatened in parliament to close down the shipyards if they can`t be run in black` Was it co-incidental that in the two weeks before the election the Times showed untypical interest in exposing the alleged scandal involving the Foreign Affairs Ministers using his weighty influence with foreign government organisations to favour family business interests?
My conclusion is that the calm that EFA used to impose whilst the Party focuses on the electoral objective was this time completely missing and factions were more interested in embarrassing the new PM to weaken his still fragile hold on the Party. The PM replied with the clear roman dictum `mors tua vita mea`.
This cannot be a good omen either for the fortunes of the PN in these elections as well as for what to expect thereafter.
Does this mean that the third seat could lean Labour`s way? Quite possibly so but Labour`s success should not be measured by winning or losing the third seat. It should be measured by the progress, or lack of it, in the percentage of first count votes. If no solid progress now that the PN have so much going against them, then when?
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