District PL votes PL votes
EP 2009 GE 2008
1 10183 10688
2 13891 14847
3 13736 14237
4 12729 13508
5 12986 13571
6 11516 12090
7 11222 11528
8 8989 9309
9 7849 7928
10 7099 7390
11 7972 8209
12 8297 8398
13 9448 10185

Total 135917 141888

[Daphne – Nobody is ignoring them. The fact that Labour polled close to its general election totals, when taken on a district by district basis, and on a much lower turn-out, means that significant numbers of people who voted PN last year voted Labour in this election, while numbers of those who voted Labour last year stayed home, as did many of those who had voted PN. The result is not different to that of 2004, except then the anti-PN vote was split between Labour and AD and was actually higher at 58%, but on a higher turn-out of 82%. The PN total then was just over 39%. It’s important to keep things in perspective. The psychological upset now is because the votes went to Labour, rather than being split between Labour and AD, and this gives Labour the chance to boast of victory. However, it is important to remember that if you are going to see this in general election terms, 2004’s totals of 39% PN, 48% Labour and 9% AD would also have meant a ‘Labour government’ – and that was Sant. In fact it was a major consideration in last year’s election that this would happen. If AD had been successful in its campaign for votes among those who had voted for it in the EP elections, we would have had Sant as prime minister today and Joseph Muscat would be an EP candidate today.

The main point that really needs to be discussed is whether, in 2004, those 9% voted AD positively, for fun, to reward them for having missed their vote in the previous year’s election, or out of anger at the government. I think it was less out of anger at the government, and more of the other things. When people want to teach the government a lesson, they vote Labour and not AD.]

What are you on about? It sounds like you need a nice long rest.

Easy.

2004: 50% MLP, 40% PN, others: floaters (i.e. AD in 2004) = 10% (=5% among PN supporters, and the floaters)

2009: PN = 40%
Floaters have switched from AD to MLP, making it 50%+5%=55%

Rightwing PN supporters + protest voters = the missing 5%

Joseph Muscat has many reasons to be thrilled. While your analysis is correct you are being clinical on one aspect of the campaign. What matters is the first count votes LP got relative to the first count votes of the PN. This amounts to a whopping 35,431 difference. The turnout was 78.8% – I don’t imagine the turnout for the next election to be more than 10% more than this figure ie around 89%. Even if you took 10% of the eligible voters who will bother next time round to vote and cast a blue dye on every single one of them you would only net in an extra 32,246 votes for PN – still not enough to reach the whopping 35,431. As things stand PL have an insurmountable majority over PN.

[Daphne – Do you remember the whopping win of 1992, followed by the whopping loss of 1996? Four years are an eternity. The guiding principle should now be ‘mohhok hemm’.]

It was the worst PN campaign ever – you don’t place work as the central theme of your campaign in the middle of a recession (I had pointed this out weeks ago). I can only think of Mugabe having a campaign based on food supplies as being more foolish. Some of the new faces at Dar Centrali may need to make way for more competent people.

The PM should consider introducing policies which will win the young voters – eg divorce. It’s a pity that in the first twelve months of this legislature PM Gonzi far from being out of control took historical decisions long in coming – the shipyards were privatised, the rent laws are to be amended and the opera house is to be rebuilt. It is also a pity that those who worked so hard to keep us out of the EU have been rewarded.

People are just not ‘loving’ the current government and would like to express it in a safe way. The governing party is and can never be popular but a quick head count definitely shows that Labour are not really the party people are hoping will be their new government.

The Maltese people wish they had an alternative to the PN but at the moment we definitely do not. Carcades come cheap but if people only think – seeing them, don’t you just wish that won’t happen in a general election?

I don’t agree Daphne. Although many suspected that this would happen, it only happened in a handful of countries like Britain, Spain, Hungary and Latvia where the economic situation is really bad (much worse than that of Malta). On the whole, most of the governing parties, like those of Poland, Germany, France, Italy and more, enjoyed victories. I must also add, that the right emerged as the big winner while the left suffered huge losses.
I think the Nationalists would be fools if they don’t analise the elections across the EU better. For one thing, they should stop saying that the European governing parties have taken a hammering, especially since many right wing governing parties emerged as the winners!

It seems after all that NP will not get the 6th seat.

http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20090608/local/new-doubts-on-destination-of-sixth-seat-in-ep-elections

Maybe because I am neither here nor there. This is an EP election and as long as the best candidates are elected from both sides, I am pretty much indifferent to any other interpretation of the result. Four years is an eternity in political terms.

We needed to elect the best candidates, I hope we did although that is yet to be seen. For me it is end of story.

This blog is still very entertaining though!