Six Word Manifesto

22^nd February 2008

The Malta Independent - Friday Wisdom

Ernest Hemingway was once prodded to compose a complete story in six words. His answer, personally felt to be his best prose ever, was “For sale: baby shoes, never used.” Some people say it was to settle a bar bet. Others say it was a personal challenge directed at other famous authors.

As we try to grapple with the surfeit of verbosity that typifies an election campaign I set myself a challenge whether I can imitate Hemingway in suggesting six word manifestos of the main forces vying for our attention in their pursuit to persuade us to tick their box on the ballot paper come 8 March.

Starting with the small political forces their six-word manifesto reads as follows:

If not king then king-maker
Little or no attention is being given to the proposals of the small political forces in their own right even though some of the measures, like the introduction of flat rate taxation, is quite daring and deserve detailed analysis if not careful consideration. Most of the voters who are not yet committed to one of the two main political streams do not look at the small political parties for their own intrinsic merits. They quite often look at them as a medium to protest against the party they traditionally voted for, either because of fatigue or because of perceived non-performance, but without swinging outright to the other political camp regarding whom old prejudices are still strong and probably unbridgeable.

Many times such disgruntled voters are not keen to see the opposite party in power but are seeking to clip the wings of their own party either by giving it a mere paper thin majority or by hoping they would have to make a coalition with the middle parties which could put discipline on their own party in government in areas where excess has damaged their reputation.

Whether this move would be strong enough to enable one of the new forces on the political scene to accumulate 16.67 per cent of the votes on any one district before their candidates get eliminated in the counting of our single transferable vote system, is an open question. Clearly the PN are more worried that even if they inherit all small parties’ votes and finish electing a majority of seats in the first instance they can still finish in opposition if the small parties do not elect a candidate and the PN scores fewer first count votes than Labour. So whether they mean it or purely by political accident, the small parties can be the king (if they elect a candidate in a hung parliament) or the king-maker (if they do not elect a candidate and none of the big parties get 50 per cent plus one of the first count votes).

Consider this six-word manifesto for Labour:

Only total change delivers the bacon

Labour’s main thrust to regain executive power after nearly 21 years in opposition, save for a brief ill-doomed 22 months period between October 1996 and September 1998, is the public’s fatigue with the PN in government. Strictly speaking the public wanted this change in 2003 but Labour forced their hand by making its availability to govern conditional to non-EU membership.

Voter fatigue with a PN government is consequently even stronger now that the PN have five further years of executive power under its belt. Labour are hoping, and the public opinion surveys seem to support this although with reservations, that this fatigue will overcome shortcomings in their credentials to govern and some evident contradictions in the few instant specific measures that they are setting as pillars of their electoral programme.

Labour must be hoping that voters would only afford face value attention to these proposals without getting into the nitty-gritty problems of their execution. I would just add that I find it very unappetising to give tax incentives only to those who have the opportunity to work overtime or to subsidise profligate energy users rather than extend the pool of social cases that are exempt from the surcharge in the first place.

The PN’s manifesto can also be summarised in a six-word essay as follows:

Gonzi: all the change you need!
In running a presidential style campaign based on the personality and performance of Dr Gonzi in office for the last four years the PN’s manifesto is trying to freshen up the party’s image to fight back voter fatigue by pretending that they have only been in government for four years. Dr Gonzi is portrayed as a good listener and a forceful decision maker who has been capable of working through the heavy liability baggage he inherited. Bringing down the deficit while stimulating economic growth is probably a double whammy any politician would be proud of and validly expect re-endorsement if one were not operating under the stress of inherited fatigue.

Progress on long neglected problems that had accumulated heavy baggage, like the completion and migration to Mater Dei (irrespective of the undoubtedly excessive project costs accumulated along the way – mostly before Dr Gonzi’s charge), small but important steps to address the pensions reform for sustainability, Maghtab rehabilitation, easing of direct tax burden for middle income earners and attraction of substantial foreign investments in engineering, health care industry and IT services, all speak well of Dr Gonzi’s performance, if seen in isolation.

Whether this is enough to overcome voters’ apathy for the PN is questionable. Voters have a habit of needing change for change’s sake as Churchill himself experienced when he was booted out of office soon after he was a celebrated war hero. Voters tend to develop strong apathy to whoever takes them for granted and they see too many culprits of arrogance lurking in the wings of Dr Gonzi to believe he will really cleanse his cabinet of such arrogance. If Dr Gonzi is to be more persuasive on his assurance, rather than do a deal in a light hearted TV programme, he needs to assure us that his cabinet will be substantially reduced and staffed with people who are prepared to work as hard as he does.

So how about a six word synthesis of this electoral campaign? Try this:

Voter fatigue vs. Fear of change
It is sad that this election seems destined to be decided on the respective negatives rather than the force of the positives. When will we have a chance to elect a government on its own merits rather than on the faults of its opponents?