Apparently, Joseph Muscat and his party have won the general election
I’ve got Super One TV on in the background. Joseph Muscat is addressing the nation (again) on the subject of his massive electoral victory.
I can’t stand local council elections so much that I am sorely tempted to switch it off because the absurdity of revelling in council election results gets to me every time. But I must press on and take a professional interest.
I know it is part of the political game to ignore the negatives and concentrate on the positives when you want to sell your message, but this is beyond ridiculous to anyone with half a brain.
It is impossible for the historically unparalled low turn-out to be ignored or disregarded as insignificant, not in a place like Malta where people are stretchered out with drips attached, all the way to the polling-booth, in general elections.
Yes, loads of people will be just like me, not voting because they couldn’t be fagged to do so, because they don’t give a damn who chooses the flower-pots around the police station and because they haven’t a clue who all those strange people are anyway.
But there is no way on earth that we will be staying home when the time comes to choose our government and prime minister, because that’s definitely not about flower-pots or sparkly Christmas lights round the tamarisk trees.
But there will also have been very many people who stayed home because they’re sick of the lot of them. Most of these, too, will be motivated differently when the Big One comes round, but there’s a message there that has to be read by both parties.
It’s not just the supporters of the Nationalist Party who stayed home. Labour supporters stayed home too. Maybe they just couldn’t be bothered, like me, but the reality is that if there really were all this raging enthusiasm for Labour and Joseph, the turn-out would not have been so spectacularly poor (in the percentage 20s and 30s in some localities). People would have driven themselves out of their homes to vote Labour. But the fact is, they didn’t.
While this cannot be considered in terms of calculating who won and who lost – of course not; that would be Alfred Sant’s referendum argument – it has to be studied closely by party analysts and you can bet your last cent that it will be. For proper campaigning in the general election, they will need to work out why so many of us stayed home rather than 1. going out to vote Labour when we habitually vote PN; 2. going out to vote PN when we habitually vote Labour; 3. going out to vote PN when we habitually vote PN; or, 4. going out to vote Labour when we habitually vote Labour.
In my case, I can give them the answer right away: I didn’t even bother to collect my voting-document, as usual. But in the general election, I will vote Nationalist because I can’t even contemplate the thought of a government made up of Joseph Muscat as prime minister, Anglu Farrugia as minister for the police, Jose Herrera as minister for justice, Charles Buhagiar as minister for public works, George Vella as foreign minister, and the rest of the horrible, incompetent, sleazy jerks salivating to climb on what they see as the gravy-train of power, there to make whoopee.
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I think many in the Labour camp will be panicked this morning. I am sure they were expecting some kind of landslide.
The Maltese like to complain about the government, but I think deep down they know most people here are actually very comfortable.
I think the result for Labour show their message (whatever that may be) is just not getting across. Winning the general election by default look even less likely now. Labour need to show some substance and given the poor quality of candidates from Muscat down its not looking likely.
I think the result is the first step of Labour coming up short, people simply dont trust them enough.
Same feelings, Daphne.
The PL got an APPARENT majority because thousands of Nationalist voters and floating voters , for various reasons, did not bother to collect their voting documents or else stayed at home on voting day.
When the statistics are thoroughly analyzed it will be obvious that floating voters and disgruntled Nationalists would rather not vote then vote Joe Muscat.
Regardless how one reads the importance of these results, the MLP has now received a much needed B12 injection.
Undoubtedly, they will be encouraged to fight hard for the general election in the coming months. A loss would have demoralized them, but didn’t happen.
Muscat is now full of confidence and their troops are eager and ready to reverse all the PN policies including pulling out Malta from the EU.
Now Julia is speaking about the ‘terrur’ in 2012. She’s a fine one to talk.
Having a free afternoon, was going through some 2008 posts, a bit of post-election nostalgia.
Daphne, you might wish to remind you readers about your FrancoDebono assessment, just a few days after the last general election.
http://daphnecaruanagalizia.com/2008/03/monday-17-march-1630hrs/
I consider myself a Labour supporter, because as I like to joke, my blood is red and my heart beats on the left side, but I voted yes in the EU referendum, PN to safeguard my Yes vote, PN in last general election because I couldn’t stand Alfred Sant, and will probably vote PN again to save my country from falling under the control of this smirking weasel…
Good for you. I hope you can persuade your family to do so as well.
Well said, Daphne.
Voter participation in Local Council/City Council elections is notoriously low everywhere. They range between 40-50% of eligible voters. Very few countries if any, let political parties nominate their own choice of candidates, although quite naturally the independent candidates may have their own personal affiliation with particular parties. Typically, all councils form their own agenda, pursue higher governments for funding of certain projects and raise some taxes, mainly on property. They generally work well and almost always follow what their constituents want or need. The part which is hard to understand is the necessity of some 70 Local Councils in Malta when a typical city of 400,000 or more in most parts of the world are administered by one City Council often not exceeding 20 councilors and a mayor!
Until Malta follows the same general idea, there will always be the ‘we’ who won and the ‘they’ who lost. It is a pity because it is a system which perpetuates division, envy, and, ‘political hatred’ About time we grow up and mature.
Your typical city would have one band club. Imagine.
When’s the swearing in of the new Prime Minister?
Dear Daphne, the writing is on the wall, beware, GonziPN is finished.
Why? Is it just because the LP won by 150 votes? The norm is that the LP wins the local councils elections but looses the most important battle of all, the general elections.
An excellent description of the chubby little snake charmer’s notorious brigade, while also pointing out that therein lies his problem with intelligent voters.
Daphne, the point you made about the inappropriateness of the term ‘gay marriage’ is naturally valid. What I find surprising is that even Matthew D’ Ancona is falling into this trap. Here’s an article where he argues that ‘gay marriage’ should be backed by conservatives because it promotes social stability:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/david-cameron/9135181/The-case-for-gay-marriage-is-fundamentally-conservative-it-will-strengthen-Britains-social-fabric.html
[Daphne – Must be his Maltese blood… Actually, the term is in common use. It just doesn’t make sense, that’s all.]
I believe that Matthew’s father is a dentist but that is all the connection there is with JPO.
What makes you so sure that those who, like me, did not bother to vote in this local council election, won’t be doing the same come the general election?
Who are we to call them incompetent, sleazy jerks, when we have given ample proof, that we have quite a lot of them in the P.N.?
[Daphne – I can call them incompetent, sleazy jerks because I have been observing them for years and that is precisely what they are. One assumes that Franco and Jeffrey will not be on the PN candidate list. I did not say that those who did not bother to vote in the local council electi8on will do so in a general election. I said that I would, and that others would as well. But others still, quite obviously, will not. And you are quite wrong to set the two parties at the same standard. They quite clearly are not. There is such a thing as an objective view.]
No doubts here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8nRTmC885A
Am I the only one to see a resemblance?
http://www2.needham.k12.ma.us/nhs/cur/Baker_00/03/baker-mc-03/mussolini.jpg
I am one of those who never bothers to vote in local council elections but then never misses voting in general elections.
I don’t know why all the euphoria. The comments on timesofmalta.com’s board are almost hilarious – although I cringe when I think what they will do if the PL wins the general elections. Mamma mia.
Labour has made this mistake again and again: interpreting local elections on a general election scale. The fact that disgruntled PN supporters preferred to stay home rather than vote Labour should give pause for thought.
Labour only gained 150 votes from the last round of the same localities. That says it all.
Labour is getting the same ‘positive’ results it managed to get under Sant after 1998, which might helped win local councils but far from clinching the big one.
If Labour deson’t assess these signs, it will go awry.
The main message in these elections is very clear…people are sick and tired of this whole political class.
Seems to me like the electorate could not bring themselves to trust the Labour Party, not even in the local council elections.
Those who have issues with the Nationalist Party are still not willing to hand over the reigns to the PL and that is why the loss of votes from the PN did not transfer over to the PL. There’s hope for this country yet.
The analysis of the results will go on and on for weeks if not months, and will reach nauseating levels – by both parties.
Still, if I had to analyse anything, I would just note that with all the massive yearning for Joseph and his clan to lead us to eternal salvation, the fact is that Labour only gained a measly 152 votes since the last election. The true winner which is to be analysed if anything are the 40%+ who, as with Daphne, did not bother to vote.
The underdog is winning everything in sight.
Some underdog.
Daphne, my feelings precisely – but then these people are so desperate to celebrate something, why are you surprised?
A few years back when Labour got the majority of seats in the EU Parliament they celebrated, when, just a few years earlier they were burning EU flags and promoting Partnerxipp.
http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-760257
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riX2ltrnFoU
The way I see it, the large number of people who did not vote surely didn’t do so because of the weather, but as a way of sending a clear message to the PN (yes I am sure that the majority were P.N.supporters).
[Daphne – Silvio, my point was that it is ALSO A MESSAGE TO LABOUR: ‘See, we didn’t want to vote PN as we usually do, but we didn’t want to vote for your party either.’ And vice versa. It is this particular aspect which merits analysis by BOTH PARTIES.]
I see the message as:
“We will never vote Labour, but on the other hand, we will not vote for the P.N.as long as it is what it is.”
Could be that it is time to have another Nationalist Party, which will manage to attract the dissgruntled P.N. supporters.
This new splinter party will be sure to gather the support of the 22000 voters (yes correct, we lost 11,000 from half of the country, which was always considered as P.N.
This is the right time for Dalli to make his move.
[Daphne – Surely you are not serious. Dalli makes his move and thousands of people like me leave in droves. You have no idea, perhaps, how he is truly perceived.]
The problem I see is that if a new Nationalist Party is set up, the thing that Gonzi would undoubtedly do, is call an early election,so that the new party will not have enough time to gather support.
[Daphne – Setting up a new party is something Labour needs to do, Silvio, not the Nationalist Party. The Nationalist Party just needs to remember that it once understood perfectly the mentality of that 10% of the Maltese population who are completely different from the other 90%, tend to live in areas where there was a high number of voter abstentions, and are the ones who in every election make the difference to the party’s fortunes. People like that now feel they no longer exist in the eyes of the political parties, that they are emarginated freaks or strangers in their own land amid the unstoppable rise of naff culture, naff values and naff thinking. It’s too much. The Nationalist Party could never in a million years get away with somebody like Joseph Muscat as a leader. It should ask itself why. The answer is not that its councillors who choose the leader have better taste than Labour delegates, but that supporters of the Nationalist Party would never tolerate it and would leave in droves. The ‘persona’ of the two politicians being touted by PN supporters themselves as possible successors to Dr Gonzi – Simon Busuttil and Mario de Marco – should tell you all you need to know about which PN supporters are feeling uncatered for. Lots of people I know switch through the Maltese TV channels on a Sunday night, for instance, and can’t relate to any of it. It is from a different culture that they know exists but which is completely alien to them even though it’s in the same tiny island: Arani Issa (Super One), Min Imissu (TVM), and on NET a soap opera featuring all the usual suspects, crass acting, a terrible story-line and Mary Spiteri as the lead character who breaks out into song during quiet moments in her office.]
Of course I do not expect the new party to win the next election, but I am sure it will have enough say in our next government, to press for the necessary changes, and change of faces, that are the only salvation for the P.N.
This is setting up a new party is a fascinating idea which has been doing the rounds of offices and kazini and such. For there to be “disgruntled” PN voters, they would have to have been “gruntled” in the first place.
Local council election results, which have been consistent since 1993 or whenever it was, should give you a clue. PN voters want LESS party, not more. Not another party.
Silvio makes the mistake of thinking that those who vote PN support PN. A good fraction of them don’t. That’s at least 11% of the electorate who vote PN but are not core voters.
We just want decent people in government who’ll let us get on with our lives, not lead us by the hand to the Land of Plenty which is the mantra of both parties.
Joseph Muscat has his lifink waych. Lawrence Gonzi has his social handouts. To hear them speak you’d think we were all god-fearing factory employees, living on the poverty line, waiting for that government cheque to come through the door of our government flat.
PN split? Dream on, Labour.
Clifford, I do not see it as a “Labour Dream” but more of a “Labour Nightmare”
Think about it properly.
http://www.drewsmarketingminute.com/images/2011/05/underdog.jpg