AD: time to give it a rest
Coalition? I'll just take their votes.
Arnold Cassola said after the election result was out: “We did not manage to get our message across.” How about: “We didn’t get the message?”
Cassola steps down in October. I’m not surprised. If people are going to vote AD at all, they’re more likely to do it in an EP election than a general election. So failure now is real failure. Unlike the Nationalist Party, AD can’t rationalise the result by saying that electors protested against them, because they’re not in government.
Cassola says that the result was worse than they expected. But why did they expect a better one? All the polls predicted that AD was barely on the radar. Cassola did the same old thing and blamed lack of media exposure. But AD had barely any media exposure in 2004 and still it polled 9% of the vote.
It ran a highly effective word-of-mouth campaign, and did exactly what Labour did this time in targeting the socio-economic group to which I belong, with drinks parties, lunches, informal gatherings to meet Cassola, key ‘recruiters’ and so on. The system is roughly the same as that of botox parties where you go along, have a few drinks and buy the botox sessions – except that in this case, the sales spiel comes from a political candidate.
But I must say that Cassola could have done nothing to turn around people’s general indifference to his party. Back in 2004 he was seen as fresh and exciting, green and glamorous, and people were still on an EU high and wanted to do something they thought was distinctly European: vote green.
Cassola has learned that even the best of us are fickle. A politician is the botox for your problems one minute, with those who hope they are hip jostling for a piece of him. Then the next minute he’s neither fashionable nor glamorous and people have moved on to the next thing. We do the same with bars and restaurants.
So now AD say they are going to do some soul-searching to see what went wrong. Weren’t they supposed to have done this already after last year’s general election? As I understood it, their public relations person Claire Bonello, who writes a column for The Sunday Times, and Kurt Sansone, who now works in The Times newsroom, were responsible for that particular project.
Arnold Cassola says now that the Maltese “have lost their chance to be represented in the Greens’ group in the EP….. because the people haven’t understood the importance of being represented in the parliament’s three groups.”
That’s one way of putting it. Another way would be to say that the Maltese people just didn’t want to elect Arnold Cassola, at least not after he decided he’s Italian one day and Maltese the next, depending on where the opportunities lie.
And then Cassola repeated the AD propaganda which those who truly worked to take Malta into the EU find so deeply offensive: “If it were not for us, we would not be in the EU today.” Oh, bother off.
Support for AD in the 2003 general election campaign nearly cost Malta EU membership. Splitting the pro-EU vote between the Nationalist Party and AD would have meant the election of Alfred Sant as prime minister.
Convincing people that this would happen, despite the propaganda being spread by AD activists, was one of the hardest parts of the campaign, and in the last few weeks, one of the most time-consuming. I never left the house without a calculator in my handbag, because without fail, people would come up to me and ask me whether it was ‘safe’ to vote AD, because AD had told them it was.
I even found myself in the absurd situation of going to the garage where my car was being serviced to have the foreman ask me for an explanation and gather his workmen around to listen to it. Their previous client had been somebody who told them that if they were in favour of EU membership it was safe to vote AD in the general election.
The situation was so bad, especially among socio-economic groups A and B, that Eddie Fenech Adami was advised to explain clearly, at the final mass meeting of the general election campaign, what would happen if pro-EU voters gave their vote to AD instead of to the Nationalist Party: Alfred Sant would become prime minister and there would be no EU membership for Malta.
AD interpreted this as an attack on their party, and reacted rabidly. It has regarded the Nationalist Party as its sworn enemy ever since, and has missed no opportunity to spit on it – though I must admit that Cassola is extremely benign compared to his hard-faced and bitterly angry predecessor, whose preferred stance was that of put-upon martyr.
The whole thing might have been fun while it lasted, but now it’s time to let go.
This article is published in The Malta Independent today.
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Fine… except for the fact that in the 2003 general election campaign AD was campaigning for no. 2 votes: “it-tieni jghodd ukoll”, and given our electoral system, no. 2 votes assign seats but don’t determine who governs. Eddie Fenech Adami, at that last mass meeting which I attended wholeheartedly, pronounced himself vehemently against voters giving AD any preference, not even the 99th. At that point it became clear to me that PN wanted all or nothing. Too bad.
Mar, you say:
“no. 2 votes assign seats but don’t determine who governs”. Wrong, and the proof of this is the 2008 election.
Last year, the PN had a relative majority (ie more votes than Labour) but not 50% plus. If Arnold Cassola had got into Parliament with PN no. 2 votes transferred from Lawrence Gonzi in the 9th district, Alfred Sant would have been safely in Castile with 34 seats in Parliament, PN 30 and AD 1 seat.
In fact, the president last year had to wait for the elimination of Arnold Cassola in the 9th district to summon Lawrence Gonzi to the palace.
The constitutional amendments regarding seat apportionment in parliament only work if: a) one party has more than 50% of the no. 1 votes; or, failing a); b) if there are only two parties in parliament.
A no.2 vote for AD in 2003 could have produced a Labour government if the PN had had a relative, but not absolute majority of no. 1 votes, Labour would have got 33 seats, and AD one seat with no.2 votes transferred from PN candidates. Nobody knew the result of the election beforehand. So Eddie Fenech Adami was very right in warning about this prospect at that last mass meeting at Luxol.
Do remember that the Yes vote in the referendum was 143,000. With that number of votes divided between the PN and AD, the PN could have been reduced to a relative majority. The PN was very apprehensive about this.
Eventually, with Eddie Fenech Adami’s tireless campaiging and appeals not to let our guard down or threaten EU membership by voting (even no. 2) for AD, the PN vote in that election was 146,000 votes – 3,000 more than the Yes vote in the referendum and an absolute majority of 10,000 votes over Labour’s 134,000 plus AD’s 2,000.
That way, EU membership was assured, not with AD’s misinterpretations of our electoral system but with the vote of those 146,000 people who voted PN.
“not with AD’s misinterpretations”
In spite of them, you mean.
Dear Libertas, had the system been fair there would have been a coalition government between PN and AD. I would have expected PN to be the first to realise this. In the first count PN got a total of 143,468, that is 2,580 votes more than the 141,888 votes MLP got, AD got a total of 3810 votes so they were the ones who should have got the extra seat.
I do not think that Arnold has ever convinced me in any way to vote for him or for AD. Harry vassallo was even worse. Over time AD lost its founders and possibly also its direction having recently sided more and more with the PL.
Weren’t Toni Abela, Wenzu Mintoff and even Joe (now Peppi) Azzopardi of Xarabank founding members? Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think so. I think that these people had set up AD to fight the injustices that were being committed by the MLP of Dom Mintoff in the 70s and 80s and the corruption that was rife in all ministries at that time.
Why did those people leave AD so early on, with two of them becoming leading members of the PL? The same thing is happening with AN. At first we had Dr. Josie Muscat and Angelo Xuereb and now it’s Josie all by himself.
AD is pro-illegal immigration or shall I say they want a good deal for them; AN is rightist and radical. Both have a faulty compass and their sense of direction is in disarray.
Green, green, green, good deals for the illegals or simply coming out with unpractical solutions to most issues and problems are utterly boring to the intelligent voter.
AD and AN are both failures in these issues, and they are simply wasting their time and money contesting elections in Malta. They might make good NGOs if they can obtain some good advisers to guide them through the pitfalls, but until then the less they say the less political damage they will do to themselves.
Nigel, AD was founded by Toni Abela and Wenzu Mintoff after they were kicked out of the MLP in 1989. Mintoff had been elected to parliament so, rather than remain an independent MP, he teamed up with Abela and formed a new party.
Basically AD started as a splinter group of the MLP so their present position adjacent to the PL is their natural one – a little detail that many voters in the 9th and 10th electoral districts have always preferred to forget. Having supported a party which did nothing but attack the PN, such voters feel comfortable now voting for another party which also attacks the PN so those who. like Daphne, used to accuse AD of being a stepping stone towards Labour have unfortunately been proved right.
Abela’s and Mintoff’s rift with the MLP concerned primarily Lorry Sant and the corruption and violence which, they argued, had caused the party to lose the 1987 elections. They had never protested about corruption and violence while they were in power and their only regret was that such abuses had put the MLP in opposition.
Both Abela and Mintoff realised that they would never get anywhere with AD and they went back to the MLP as soon as they could. It should have signaled the dissolution of AD but by then (1999) there were other interests and wannabe politicians who kept the party alive artificially, re-inventing it as a green party. For a time, this made a few environmentalists gravitate towards AD but, unlike other green parties in Europe, it was never the political expression of environmental NGOs.
AD is now a spent force and its survival or otherwise is hardly of any consequence to the PN. If anything, it is in the PL’s interest to see AD winding up as most of its votes – few as they are – would converge into the PL.
Spot on, Antoine.
Why did AD perform badly in the local council elections?
In 2004 AD asked its supporters a No. 2 preference – how very convenient for you to forget.
[Daphne – That’s your spin. The reality is that you were asking for a No. 1 vote and that people like me had to face a barrage of questions as to why it was a bad idea. Your friend Kurt Sansone, then working in the Malta Today newsroom, rang me on my mobile phone at one point to give me an obscene bollocking because I had explained to one of his colleagues what would happen if she gave her No. 1 vote to AD. And another thing, as an accountant you should be a whizz with numbers – and so you know that a No. 2 vote would also have favoured Sant. If you were that much in favour of EU membership, you should have said: Look here, we’re not going to be playing games. We’re pulling out of this race and all those in favour of the EU vote PN. But you wanted it both ways, didn’t you. And looking back, going on what you and some of your AD colleagues are saying and doing now, I have doubts as to whether you were really in favour of EU membership. ]
rubbish!
[Daphne – Not at all, Edward. Take you, for example. You say you’re AD but what you are is actually anti-PN. You just can’t wait for Labour to get in, even if secretly you despise Joseph Muscat.]
Edward,
Why can’t you understand that for a party to exist it needs to stand on its own two feet rather than free-riding on others? With the experience of your current leader in the infamous anti-Berlusconi alliance made up of diametrically opposed values, I would have thought you’d learned that lesson.
The no. 2 vote for AD in 2004 threatened EU membership. Proof? The 2008 election.
Last year, the PN had a relative majority (ie more votes than Labour) but not 50% plus. If Arnold Cassola had got into Parliament with PN no. 2 votes, Alfred Sant would have been safely in Castile with 34 seats in Parliament, PN 30 and AD 1 seat.
In fact, the President last year had to wait for the elimination of Arnold Cassola in the 9th district to summon Lawrence Gonzi to the Palace.
AD always seem unable to understand that the Constitutional amendments regarding seat apportionment in parliament only work if: a) one party has more than 50% of the no. 1 votes; or b) if there are only two parties in Parliament.
A no.2 vote for AD in 2004 was a vote against EU membership as nobody knew beforehand whether the PN would get a relative majority (ie more votes than Labour but less than 50%) or an absolute majority.
These are the facts of our system. AD just cannot, or wouldn’t, understand them, as shown by this comment above and by the repeated comments of then AD candidates like Kurt Sansone.
What’s your opinion on AN, Daphne? Don’t you think their time is up as well?
[Daphne – Yes. But whatever floats Josie’s boat…]
This is quite true. I changed my mind at the last minute and voted PN after your explanation of how this could pan out if I voted AD.
If Arnold Cassola looks like his photo he’s too ill to travel.
Compare Profs Cassola’s performance to Norman Lowell’s. Norman Lowell was banned by the media. His campaign was a few balloons flying on top of the Luqa phallic monument. If Cassola murmured, on the other hand, you had the Times and Malta Today newsrooms falling over themselves to tell us.
Cassola gets less than a quarter of his 2004 vote, from 22,938 down to 5,235, while Norman Lowell doubles his vote to 3,559.
Norman Lowell is the basest of the base. Which goes to show just how badly Cassola and AD have fared in this election.
Throw a bone to a pack of hungry dogs…
@Mar
@Edward Fenech
In 2003 AD campaigned for first preference votes, first and foremost. They did ask for the second preference but that was in addition to. And, by the way, they never ever told anyone to give their first preference to the Nationalists.
If you have any doubts here’s AD’s press release on the occasion:
Il-Partit Nazzjonalista u Fenech Adami qed jipprova ibezzghek bil-gideb … anke illum!
“KURAGG! Ivvota AD
“AD’S DIRECTIVE TO VOTERS
“www.alternattiva.org.mt
“Alternattiva Demokratika is asking its members and supporters to Vote 1 AD so as to help bring about a breath of fresh air based on sustainable development, social justice, civil rights and a better quality of life for all Maltese and Gozitans.
“We are also inviting pro-EU Labourites to give us their first preference.
“Such Labourites form an important part of Malta’s pro-EU majority as expressed in the March 8 referendum and are welcome in AD’s family. AD is the natural home for all those who believe in progressive politics.
“However, given the particular characteristics of this General Election, AD is not only appealing for number 1 votes from Green voters and pro-EU Labourites. We are also making a strong emphasis for number 2 votes from non-AD voters so as to ensure a pro-EU parliamentary majority and a breath of fresh air.”
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Alternattiva/message/3127
Be fair. Maybe their calculator was broken that day and when they used their fingers they really did work out that a vote for AD wouldn’t mean Sant as PM and no EU membership for Malta.
I don’t know who advised Cassola on using Yes We Can but it worked out horribly especially on the TV debate I was watching when he tried to put in his ‘Yes we can’ as part of his Maltese speech – disaster! If I had ever wanted to vote for him that would have put me off completely.
Unfortunately many parties/independent candidates think that the only way to gain votes is to whip government and moan about how this or that is not working. I would suggest they try and come up with viable solutions that are not extreme and Ii’m sure they will be pleasantly surprised with the outcome.
“Yes we can” what? He came out as the most unoriginal politician in the EU.
In the 2003 general election, AD were asking for the number 2 vote after Eddie Fenech Adami in Birkirkara. If this had happened, while Eddie got around 14,000 votes on the 7th district, AD would have elected a member of parliament. Then we could have seen the real face of AD, which I feel is quite different to what we know today.
Has enyone ever heard an AD person saying anything against MLP? The PN was always top of their agenda. I don’t like calling the MLP the PL. Can anyone tell them to make up their mind on a name, for heaven’s sake? First they were Laburisti, then Mintoffjani, then Socjalisti, then MLP and now PL, and this is in the last 40 years.
There’s a common thread joining AD and the MLP, and it’s called Graffitti/Wiggerism/anti-NATOism etc etc. Now Daphne, like most civilised analysts, won’t admit this, because of the common enemy called Racist Bigots, and I can understand her, but it’s true nonetheless. The problem in Malta is that there never was an electable, rational, decent Right to counterbalance the Peppi-Graffitti-AD-Mintoffian nexus. But that’s the way it is.