The results at this point (based on sampling)
The results at this point, based on sampling, are:
Nationalists – just under 42%
Labour – around 56%
(Turn-out – just under 79%)
Seats – Nationalists/2; Labour/3; sixth seat likely to go to a Nationalist candidate
The result in 2004 was:
Nationalists – 39.76%
Labour – 48.42%
AD – 9%
(Turn-out just over 82%)
Seats – Nationalists/2; Labour/3
What happened this time is that the AD vote of 2004 went to Labour yesterday. This is a phenomenon that I recognised during the general election last year: that for people from socio-economic group A (and to a lesser extent B), voting AD was just a stepping-stone to voting Labour, something they couldn’t bring themselves to do yet.
If my assessment of the situation is correct, these are not young people we are talking about, but middle-aged people of between 35 and 60. And no, I don’t think we’re speaking of grudges here, but of a generalised feeling of resentment and the need to belong to something that feels contemporary. This is the coalition of which Muscat has been speaking.
It was also to be predicted that people from socioeconomic groups A and B, from a non-Labour background, would vote for Louis Grech, Marlene Mizzi and Edward Scicluna without thinking of this as a vote for the Labour Party, but as a vote for the individual.
The sentiment I have picked up is exactly the same as that in 1996, except of course that this is not a general election.
On the one hand we have a political party that’s all substance and no image, and on the other hand we have a political party that’s all image and no substance.
The challenge for the Nationalist Party now is to build on that substance, freshen up its outlook and bite some real bullets. My guess is that the introduction of divorce, far from losing votes, will work wonders – and forget those ridiculous cohabitation rights, a half-assed measure if ever there was one.
The Nationalist Party has for the last 30 years been the party of hope and real progress. The irony should not escape us that the party – and the man – who tried so hard to keep Malta back and out of the European Union should today be celebrating a victory. He has been rewarded for his wrong-doing and poor judgment, while those to whom we owe our ability to vote in EP elections have taken a hammering for not being quite hip enough.
It’s interesting, and what’s more interesting still is that Maltese politics are so predictable. Anyone who is well networked into socio-economic group A can see the lie of the land at any given time.
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Dr Emmy Bezzina,EU Candidate (1 hour, 16 minutes ago)
ALPHA LIBERAL DEMOCRATIC PARTY congratulates wholeheartedly the Labour Movement & the PARTIT LABURISTA for this predicted but indeed truly overwhelming ,gargantuan victory.Immediately right after the General Elections of March 8th,2008,we humbly submitted that the NATIONALIST PARTY was NOT given a MANDATE to govern,and that General Elections had to be reheld.TODAY`s GLARING VICTORY is another INVITATION to the NP to halt immediately their governmental activity,dissolve Parliament and call GENERAL ELECTIONS afresh.The country is literally static and economically paralyzed.MANY are those who are literally surviving by the minutes,despite what at times might appear the opposite but in fact it is not.Work is at a standstill and the PEOPLE cannot take in anymore the arrogance and matter-of-fact corruption of the established circles.The PL will go on to win decisively the next GENERAL ELECTIONS as the people are fed-up.This is not political inclinations at heart,it is the craving reality of an electorate suffering and who do not want to see the nepotistic encirclements to keep apparently flourishing at their expense.
This was NOT an EU Parliamentary Election,but a vote of the aggrieved against a Minority Government – the country has become ungovernable.Call it a day and let`s have a General Election.
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20090607/local/labour-wins-by-a-landslide
And how many votes exactly did you get, Emmy?
Oh my God, he interrupted his studies again ..this must be very important.
ALPHA LIBERAL DEMOCRATIC PARTY has a name which contains more letters than its members, and probably more than the number of first count votes it manages to garner. DR.BOMBASTIC !
Daphne, I and many others voted yes to the EU because we were yearning a better future, a better standard of living, a more accountable government, a more responsible MEPA but till now this has not materialised. To their credit the Nationalist Party gave us the European dream but failed to live up to the European standards which other European nations have grown accustomed to. This government has taxed us like no other government before it. He speaks nicely but fails to deliver. Many of his ministers are incompetent and big headed. Its back-benchers can’t wait to get their revenge because this is a crippled government.
And the Labour MPs? And the past Labour governents? You are either very young, or have got a terrible memory.
I agree with eric. Last Saturday I did not vote for various reasons, mainly being the arrogance of people like JPO and our incompetent ministers. I will never vote LP, never, but I had to give my beloved party a message ie it had better wake up unless it wishes to step down and hand the LP another victory.
It is useless to blame past LP governments. Now they have a new leader and many people are believing in him.
[Daphne – Apparently, not even many of his own people are.]
If the PN is going to ignore this message, it can say that it has signed its death certificate.
[Daphne – Let’s not be melodramatic. After all, even Alex Sceberras Trigona is still around.]
So Joseph Muscat is hitting on a winning formula and attracting the AB socio-economic group, which till now has been a no-go area for Labour. Yes, things are changing.
One thing has not, however. We still have a government which twice in 15 months has the absolute majority of the electorate voting against it.
Now where did I put my EU flag?
I have my doubts regarding the AB socio economic group.
AD attracted “liberal” voters, liberal in the sense that they had issues which the PN has generally been slow to address, example divorce. Until recently the MLP also thought that that was a no go area (remember that Sant had started addressing the issue but back tracked very quickly). AD were the only ones committed to it. People only voted for AD in 2003 EP elections because they thought that was their only chance to get a voice addressing their issue in an institution that counts, whilst they had to swallow their pain in the general elections because they knew AD would never make the threshold and hence other criteria where more important, example EU.
Joseph Muscat has wisely been harping on the “progressive” label and those with such issues now have a larger body representing them, hence the nail in AD’s coffin which has now lost its last leg it could hope to stand on.
They are celebrating and were is the EU flag? What a shame.
They were probably simply voting Labour, without having a clue what this is all about.
Gonzipn’s first exam result: FAIL. In the next exam, which will be important, he will FAIL as well.
Correction – Gonzipn’s first exam result was last year – and he passed.
[Daphne – Actually it was the year before: getting Malta into the eurozone, though strictly speaking we joined on 1 January.]
Gonzipn’s first exam result: FAIL. In the next exam, which will be important, he will FAIL as well.
David, then perhaps you can help us; your party is obviously used to failure.
Below the belt – Attent ghac-“chickens”.
Erm actually I would have thought that GonziPN’s first actual test was 15 months ago… which, I’m sure you remember, he passed. But let’s not ruin your moment of joy… you can check who’s running the country tomorrow morning.
It-tigrija sal-barkun.
With Labour’s reasoning of absolute majority they only managed to get 45% of eligible votes. I think they have a lot to worry about.
I agree with you m scicluna. But what about us? It’s 32.7% rather bad don’t you think? I don’t care if they think they won, what I wish is that Dr Gonzi will start hearing what we are trying to say.
And you are saying….? What? Beyond the usual generalised bleating about “arrogance” and “incompetence” you have not mentioned a single practical issue. You sound like someone who did not receive the favour they expected.
I supppose that by now the PN have understood that it is useless for them to try to attract voters, or keep voters in their fold, by portraying itself as the “EU” party. The job of the LP now is to seriously start diminishing this false impression that the PN had been trying to give.
[Daphne – Those don’t look like supporters of EU membership to me, Albert. Out on the streets there isn’t a single EU flag.]
The LP should list the endless series of EU directives its government tried to ignore. Suffice it to mention taxes on Satellite dishes, car tax, discrimination against EU citizens as regards voting in EU elections, severe discrimination against EU citizens who wish to register their car in Malta, environment directives. European credentials of the PN? My foot.
[Daphne – God, I find twisted logic so exhausting. Let me get this straight: I am being asked to admire the work of a political party on ‘EU directives’, when if it were up to that political party we would not have had any EU directives at all. How does that work? Forget that six years ago they tried to keep me out of the EU and meanwhile admire their hard graft on satellite dishes? I don’t think so. If these were different people we were talking about, but under the same party ticket, then at a very long stretch……but I still see the same faces who yelled about Sicilian hairdressers.]
In-nies li hemm jiccelebraw fit-toroq ma nahsibx li jifmu fl-EU. Ghalihom, din kienet “prova” ghal-elezzjoni generali, u, bhas-soltu, hargu jivvutaw – u jiccelebraw – bi hgarhom … bhalma ghamlu meta hargu jiccelebraw li “il-partnership rebah”. ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doky8I7mJSI )
Let them celebrate while we do our homework. People had the right to vote (or not vote) for the PN, LP etc. If we do our homework right, only then will we be able to win the general election in four years time.
No surprises – unless one was living in dreamland. PL won hands down, good luck. I find it amusing that the same people who were donning a red top and celebrating the No “victory” five years ago are again out celebrating a victory that consolidates the PL’s position within the EU. The biggest losers are those who still harboured some hope that Malta will leave the EU.
Yes, ridiculous, isn’t it? And the people who should have been credited with having more brains allowed it to happen.
Open your eyes and sort out your Party – Daphne and friends.
[Daphne – It’s not my party. It’s the party I vote for, the party which by 2013 will have won every election in 37 years, bar that of 1996 – and we all know what happened then. That is so far from a track record of failure that I don’t even know where to begin. I find it infinitely amusing that after losing every election in 37 years – by 2013 – bar 1996, Labour supporters are now out celebrating a landslide victory in an EP election.]
… celebrating an EP election when they were all anti-EU in the first place.
The people have spoken. No excuse will nullify the result. The people are in favour of being part of the EU but are not happy by the government who represent them there. We do not want yes-men there. We are not reaping the fruit which we were promised.
Dr Gonzi has some soul searching to do. A reshuffle is a must. Heads must roll. Ministers, and yes, the Prime Minister should be accountable to the people and the ministry they represent.
MEPA has become a monster where the man in the street is a nobody.
In my opinion some candidates contesting the MEP elections in both parties, should have never contested.
Any comments about this news?
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20090607/local/norman-lowell-may-just-surpass-ad
Let them wave out their party flags. They have been too long in their drawers.
I hope ‘drawers’ in kxiexen.
Was just hearing Evarist Bartolo speaking on PL tv that the Partit Laburista is a European party and no one should dare to say that they are not. What cheek to say this after all that campaigning in the year before joining. Also what a disappointment for those voters who truly believed that PL was against Europe. I personally know members of my family that did not vote on Saturday because they are against Europe but Labourites at heart.
Isa you are truly confused. Of course the PL is a Social European party It has been so since we have joined the EU in 2004. You must be in the moon if you do not remember that we already had one MEP election and Labour elected their first three candidate representatives. For your information this is already the 2nd election. And Isa you seem a are very entertaining person to make us aware that Joseph’ wore a blue tie. Maybe that tie might have influenced some people.
Good, and “for your information”, you’ve had this vast majority (3 vs 2, egad) for five years, and yet you still complain of Gonzipn’s hegemony.
Mr Baxxter, for your information Malta concerns all those who have a Maltese citizenship and who duly pay their taxes. Therefore I have every right to complain or critcise Gonzipn’s hegemony, especially when things are not going right for my country. As you well know when Malta was running smoothly the people acknowledged it with their vote. However at present the situation here is not at its best. Miinisters are getting arrogant to the point of dictating, they have imposed heavy bills on families when their salaries have not increased, they first vowed that employment is ‘fis-sod’ and then they iare implementing forced redundancy schemes. The prime minister looks on but seemed too tired grasp control.
Mary you have not replied to Baxxter’s post, possibly because he used a difficult word: hegemony. He did not say that you cannot criticise Gonzi; what he meant was that you cannot claim that, in the EP, the PN had a hegemony, i.e. a very strong dominant position.over Labour, seeing that the MLP had a majority of members.
On another point, we have not had any “forced redundancy schemes” but extremely generous early retirement ones. Perhaps you prefer the militarised labour corps but those times are long gone, thank goodness.
Also saw Joseph wearing a blue tie against a blue EU flag – very nice.
I am 24, usually vote PN, but yesterday I decided not to, and have no regrets about it…this party has forgot what it battled to achieve in the 70’s and 80s. Come 2013, just like yesterday, my decision will be to vote PN, or not to vote at all…I wouldn’t even trust LP to take out my garbage bag, let alone run my country.
I agree with most of your analysis, however if this party is to continue governing it must do more then introduce divorce…it must champion its introduction only if it is convinced of it, otherwise we will end up making the same ridiculous show Sharon Ellul Bonici did when trying to befriend the hunters to get their votes (from the latest results that tactic didn’t bear much fruit I’m glad to note either).
If PN is to be voted in again, Gonzi has to carry out the reforms he promised last year, and show some minerals and reshuffle. If he fails to do so, the writing is on the wall.
Jon
Hmmm let’s look at this.
A year after a general election and in the middle of an international financial crisis, the party in government slightly increases its percentage of votes, and the opposition consolidates round one party, which makes no inroads in the government’s support.
And they’re celebrating? OK then.
[Daphne – The aim is to win the general election, and to do that Muscat doesn’t need to make inroads into the Nationalist Party’s support as such, but pick up the votes of AD etc. This is what has happened, and this is why his supporters are celebrating. This is off the top of my head because we’re far from the stage of formal analysis yet, but I would say that the AD vote of 2004, which came mainly from socio economic groups A and B, this time went to Louis Grech, Marlene Mizzi and Edward Scicluna. What remains to be seen is whether these electors made the choice to vote Labour and then chose their preferred candidate, or whether they chose the candidate first and ignored the party ticket. Many of my circle would have voted for Louis Grech, for example, as he is personally known and respected.]
By the way, notwithstanding the financial crisis you still need to book at restaurants, as I found out earlier today.
And I’ve just watched Labour pundit Godfrey Grima complaining about the stipends and saying the university’s biggest problem is no longer that of educating the have-nots, but the parking facilities, because you get sets of three siblings turning up and expecting to park three cars.
Damn the government, it’s really doing badly.
I don’t see much difference really. So what? These people voted AD in 2004 and most of them voted PN again in 2008. Having realised that AD is a waste of time, the same people voted for the more acceptable face of the MLP in 2009 and I suspect most of them will not do the same in 2013. I would be more inclined to worry about the new voters in 2013.
My point is that in view of its diminished majority from 2003 to 2008, one would expect a similar reduction for the PN from 2004 to 2009, rather than an increase, assuming the samples are borne out. Whilst you cannot extrapolate a numerical result from an EU election to a general election or vice-versa, you can certainly extrapolate a trend if not its intensity.
I’m not saying that the result is nothing to be worried about, because, as somebody said, you wouldn’t trust the PL to take out the garbage (at least under AS they would presumably be able to organise a piss-up in a brewery!) let alone run the country.
I’m saying that I would have expected it to be much worse, and the only reason it isn’t is Labour’s ineptitude and Muscat’s inability to bring about meaningful change to his party.
So if this is the best Labour can do in what should be the deepest part of the goverment’s intra-election trough……
So what should the PN be doing in the meantime? Divorce would be a good thing, but simply delivering on its electoral programme, and continuing the conversion of our economy to a higher value added service oriented economy will go a long way.
[Daphne – Mike, I sent you an email on the address shown with your comment. If it’s not the correct one, please send me a telephone number where I can reach you – or a correct email address. Thank you.]
At least, despite a heavy workload and many distractions, I can say I did my bit – coming over to vote for all 10 Nats.
I think you credit PL supporters with far more intelligence than they have, Daphne, when you say that: ‘Muscat doesn’t need to make inroads into the Nationalist Party’s support as such, but pick up the votes of AD etc. This is what has happened, and this is why his supporters are celebrating.’ They’re just happy because the PL won, and by a large margin. It’s absolutely no use trying to explain to them that, by Alfred Sant’s logic, they lost heavily (only 45% of the total vote).
My gut feeling is that the PL will win the next general election by about 5000 votes, based on today’s results but this can be averted if Gonzi pulls his finger out. This business of everything going years and millions over schedule/budget has got to stop and – yes – divorce will be a big step forward. Sadly, I don’t think he’s capable of doing the right thing. Not good news, reading about the comeback of il-Qahbu and il-Qattus. Luckily I’m relatively insulated, but I grieve for my family and friends.
Ghada ha jisbah jum gdid taht il-PM ta’ Malta, Dr L.Gonzi……
People celebrating in Hamrun think that tomorrow Muscat will become prime minister. I was at Hamrun to pick up my grandmother and heard countless people saying this.
http://www.di-ve.com:
When live is… well, pre-recorded
Sunday, June 07, 2009 1542h
He may be basking in adoration after he won 55-57 per cent of the national vote – just a year after becoming leader – but even Joseph Muscat cannot be in 2 places at one time.
He was live on TVM and One TV – at the same time. One TV later admitted that their version had been pre-recorded.
Assuming those percentages are correct ……. 56% of 79% of 322411 total votes = 142635 votes
MLP votes general election 2008 – 141,888 votes
The increase in votes is practically negligible.
As for PN …… 42% of 79% of total votes = 106,976 votes
PN votes general election 2008 – 143,468 votes
That’s a substantial amount of lost votes. PN must analyse why.
[Daphne – You really can’t extrapolate from a general election to a European Parliament election. It’s not wise. It’s the pockets and special interest groups that you have to look at.]
Agreed, Daphne. Mine is a simplified interpretation of results but it can be very close to the truth.
PL did treat this as a general election. So you can compare their performance in 2008 with this election.
All PL’s 140K+ voters confirmed their votes – nothing less nothing more.
Labour party never seems to learn from history. Deja vu. Four years is a lifetime in politics and this has happened before with the result that PN won the election a few years later. Will they celebrate again coming weekend when they announce the local council results?
Are you saying you think we’re going to win the next general election or that right before it we will have won every election for the past 37 years?
[Daphne – No, of course I’m not hazarding a guess as to 2013. The odds are that Labour will win. Joseph Muscat was in the right place at the right time to become leader and now he’ll find himself in the right place at the right time to become prime minister, with hardly any effort involved. But we forget that by then, Labour will have been on a losing ticket for 37 years. Since 1976, the only general election Labour won was in 1996. That’s a long time.]
I am at the counting hall and the MLP is not celebrating here. They expected four seats. They got three seats. It’s a Pyrrhic victory if ever there was one. But the PN needs to get its act together, weed out those who are sapping its strength and move on .
Why a Pyrrhic victory? I think you don’t know what you’re talking about. What devastating and irreparable damage has the Labour Party suffered because of this election result?
[Daphne – I think the term is largely misunderstood. I suspect what people mean is a pointless victory.]
More like Bonaparte’s capture of Moscow…
Daphne, have they perhaps won the election? Because I seriously cannot fathom all this enthusiasm.
I mean, go out just one second and you will see loads of people going round – and, what’s important, is that NONE of them has in hand an EU flag, only their party’s flag. Are they, perhaps, ashamed of the fact that Malta is a member of the European Union? Their celebrating reminds me of their mass meetings one year back.
[Daphne – It’s totally silent round where I live, and I have to work so television is out.]
Well, I reside in the Sliema area . . . and so far it’s been anything but quiet. I mean, cars passing by, horns and music all-out.
You should turn on your TV, and switch to ONE: it looks like there’s one big red carpet, going bonkers to the sound of music.
I don’t live far from Sliema, and the carcades have been going by for at least the last five hours.
The victory speech:
http://elections.nytimes.com/2008/results/president/speeches/obama-victory-speech.html#
Hey B
You’re not putting Joey in Obama’s league, are you?
Tony Pace, Obama and Joseph have something in common…both are impolite…Obama refused a dinner with the Sarkozys who are hosting the D-Day celebrations and Joseph kept the PM waiting with no explanation.
Same background.
Not at all.. actually it was Joseph and Toni Abela who have associated themselves (in my opinion stupidly) with Obama.
I am not hearing anyone celebrate in the streets but then I live in Balzan which is hardly a Labour stronghold. I’ll be going to St Julian’s soon and will see if there are any carcades – they always go to Sliema which, so Labourites have been taught, represents the enemy.
There is always room for improvement in the PN but I do not think that a drastic overhaul is called for. The government has performed well in the difficult economic circumstances we have had in the past year and there is very little it could have done more than it did.
The PL have made a symbolic victory which should help their morale but I doubt it will have any bearing on the future. It may seem strange to say this now but, from what I’ve seen so far of Joseph Muscat, the PN stands a good chance of winning the next general elections unless he changes his attitude significantly, which seems unlikely.
Another result of this election might be that AD finally realise their true nature – being a pressure group – and will cease to be a thorn in the side of the PN.
[Daphne – I think AD has been hoist by its own petard in never criticising the Labour Party. Its votes have moved to Labour.]
I think the PN got what they deserve, one think comes to mind the water and electricity bills.They made a mess out of it, and I think that Gonzi should have taken care of this issue himself being a social matter rather than left it to il-bully belti.
Also, Gonzi could only come up with the free energy saving bulbs as a remedy-this is not the way to lead serious politics, we expect better leadership skills.
I have a list of failures, by the PN government which truely I do not understand how they occur.I also believe that the government should increase the number of cabinet ministers, so as they work more in this dynamic country.
If the PN wants to win elections , it has to be closer to the people,so as they will know what hurts and not.It is difficult for people to express there views to the governing body, even if their claims are justifiable.
One issue that really hurts is the EU funding, which is available to some SME’s for more than one time , whilst for others it is a loaded of excuses when it comes to application for EU aid.I experienced the latter myself.It is useless to declares millions of euros of EU aid in the media, and than it is impossible to access.
On a last note, Gonzi have to understands that the challenges we are facing due to the world economy and even his newly introduces laws and by-laws and tariffs, are not going to be solved by Smart City or Lufthansa Technique.
“One issue that really hurts is the EU funding, which is available to some SME’s for more than one time , whilst for others it is a loaded of excuses when it comes to application for EU aid.”
You have to understand EU legislation on funding. Not all funding is available to all SMEs. It depends on your activity e.g. if an SME is only in the field of import/export, then it will hardly be a candidate for any EU funds (and this does not depend on the Maltese government but on the European Commission). And the reason is simple – the EU wants an increase in industrial production and thus aid goes in that direction. Another target that the EU wants to reach is a level of private research (one might agree with this or not, but again, it’s not the Maltese government’s fault). These are just two examples but there might be others.
On another point, grants are usually awarded after an evaluation of the proposal and this evaluation is usually carried out under strict (in fact, very strict) guidelines by the commission. So again, if you want to have a chance in being awarded a grant you have to present a good and coherent application. From personal experience there are very few SMEs that have the time and capability of writing a good proposal; most of the successful ones utilise professional help in this.
David, you are another one with a chip on his shoulder who turns his personal gripe into a national issue. So you think that projects like Smart City and Lufthansa Technik will not help us meet the challenges we are facing. What would help then? Giving you some of the EU money you have applied for but did not get?
The introduction of divorce would turn the tables around, you say? I don’t think so – after all Joseph Muscat has been harping about his “free vote” on the matter, so it’s a no starter.
[Daphne – A free vote is a non-starter. I disagree with it. You’re either committed or you’re not.]
The demise of the PN in this election is intrinsically intertwined with the economic recession – constituents tend to blame the local slowdown, notwithstanding that this is a global recession after all and impact on local industry has been quite subdued.
I have read your political analysis above with interest. I have always voted PN, but not this time round, and not for the reasons given above, nor do I hold a grudge.
Unfortunately, constituents such as myself see the PN as a complacent, laid-back animal these days. And yet, when its back is against the wall, the PN is resilient enough to dig itself out of very tight corners with its hallmark vision and concrete proposals. Alas, like the bright yet indolent student, it seems you need to “rough up” the PN to get the best of it.
Let PL supporters revel in this “victory” (academic as status quo has been preserved after all) and let us hope that this election result is a wake-up call to the PN.
Jack, “demise of the PN”? Aren’t you being a little over-dramatic?
“The irony should not escape us that the party – and the man – who tried so hard to keep Malta back and out of the European Union should today be celebrating a victory.”
That is precisely what I can’t understand: how can people who originally voted pro-EU, vote for Muscat’s party in the MEP elections when Labour were so anti-EU in the first place? It really does not make any sense.
The only good thing is that euro-sceptic Sharon Ellul Bonici does not seem to have been elected. As you said elsewhere in this blog, though, the downside is that Cuschieri may very well have been. (Though that would be a sympathy vote “ghax ta’ s-siggu tieghu lill-kap, heqq, ghux?”)
“The challenge for the Nationalist Party now is to build on that substance, freshen up its outlook and bite some real bullets. My guess is that the introduction of divorce, far from losing votes, will work wonders – and forget those ridiculous cohabitation rights, a half-assed measure if ever there was one.”
Perfectly said. Let’s hope they understand this message and start to be the real progressives in the country. The other road would be to overemphasize their traditional values – and that will almost certainly result in another poor showing next general election.
Good to see everybody’s happy. A rarity in Malta. Labour happy with their victory. Nationalists happy that when all the math is done, they won as well. Seems a bit like the referendum.
So Dr. Emmy Bezzina wants fresh elections? If I remember correctly Dr. Bezzina was part of the Labour party back in 1981 when the Labour Party governed this island for 5 years and 5 months with a majority of seats, and a minority of votes……….
How can you have the nerve to ask for fresh elections…?
Not everyone has a short memory Dr.Bezzina.
Although Tonio Borg was emphatic that eventually it will be 3-3, some of my Labour friends seem quite certain that the 6th seat will go to Labour. Past predictions having failed to materialise, I tend to believe the former.
About this “introduction of divorce” business. I believe the last two Nationalist presidents are on record as stating that were a divorce bill to be passed in parliament, they could not, according to their conscience, sign it into law. I don’t know where George Abela stands on this, but I understand that he is as “Jesus” as the rest of them, which is one of the reasons that Gonzi appointed him. Neither can I see Gonzi being committed to divorce to the extent that he’d put his MPs under the whip’s instructions. And even if he did, I’ve no doubt there’d be rebels. I can’t see divorce being introduced in this legislature. Have another look at that horrendous campaign clip you posted, telling us that the PN represents our values, i.e it is against divorce.
[Daphne – That clip was a serious mistake and did a lot of damage. I said so from day one. It did a lot of damage precisely because it does not represent the values of PN supporters, but the values of the conservative right wing, which votes Labour.]
http://elections.di-ve.com/frontend/ElectionReports.aspx