It’s because Joseph is a total turn-off, and because a man of 38 isn’t young to people 20 years his junior and young enough to be his children, so being 38 isn’t a USP
And then they're surprised because new voters don't fancy the Labour Party.
And it’s also because the Nationalist Party speaks to young people’s aspirations and has done so for years.
I wrote about this several times long before the polls showed that young people don’t fancy Joseph or his party.
The fact remains that when you’re 18, 38 isn’t young. It’s old.
It’s practically death’s door, over the hill, oh-my-god-how-ancient. When I was 38, I had a son of 18, a first-time voter. He and his contemporaries didn’t look at me and think, “Wow, we can really hang out with you; you’re so amazingly young.” I was an ancient parent: Has-Serh, here we come.
Joseph Muscat doesn’t get this, I wrote back then. He just doesn’t see, or won’t see, that he’s 20 years older than first-time voters, which means a full generation, which means he is more than old enough to be their father. And that’s exactly how they see him: as their parents’ contemporary.
And yet he sends them emails saying that he understands them because he is a ‘zaghzugh’ too. That really freaks them out. It is the the email equivalent of a middle-aged pervert turning up at the club to hang about with people young enough to be his sons and daughters, while pretending to be one of them.
I remember people in their 30s hanging about at Saddles and Ta’ Gianpula and Club 47 back when I was 18, and what we thought of them. It’s unprintable.
This is the leading article (editorial) in The Times today.
WHY YOUNG PEOPLE ARE TURNING TO PN
Is it not hugely significant that, according to a poll for The Sunday Times, new voters are more inclined to vote for the Nationalist Party than for the Labour Party?
Equally significant is that the PN also has a relative majority of voters in the 18-24 age bracket. This may be of little consolation to the Nationalists when Labour has a 10-point lead but, even so, the findings do merit a deeper analysis.
First, considering that the poll was carried out at a very turbulent time for the PN, the findings do come as a surprise. Young people may not be as interested in politics as those of yesteryear , not just because of the more interesting distractions of life today but probably even more so because of the antics and the glaring self-interest displayed by politicians in both camps over time.
This has greatly helped to instil growing distrust in politicians.
However, it is hardly likely that young people about to vote for the first time are unaware of what is happening politically. For one thing, it is practically impossible for one to isolate oneself completely from the grip of the stifling political environment, one reason perhaps why the recent European football championship provided such a huge relief for so many thousands.
So, what makes new voters and the majority of those in the 18-24 age bracket turn to the PN?
With such a young man as Joseph Muscat at the helm of the party (Or is it officially called a movement now?), one would have thought that young people are turning to Labour in droves. The truth apparently is that those in this age bracket do not see the PL as a party that meets their aspirations, which is not strange considering that it is going all out to try to please everybody at the same time.
Or maybe young people think they have better job prospects under the Nationalists than under Labour, or they may not trust the PL in its promise to keep the stipends.
Like the PN, Labour has already committed itself not to touch the students’ stipends if it is elected but, on the basis of past experience, new voters may not be taking the PL leader’s word for it. Before the election in 1996, the PL had also promised not to touch stipends, only to turn its payment into a loan-based system after its election.
Actually, both parties are in the wrong on this. The general advice by the experts is that the stipend should only be given to those who really need it. Savings made would then be spent on strengthening University courses or to improve facilities. But the parties would not take any note of this for fear of losing votes.
What else would make young people turn to the PN rather than to Labour?
One expert said, when asked to react to the findings, that young people in this country did not have a tradition of radicalism as was the case in Italy and Spain.
They tended to support one party over another based on what they stood to benefit as individuals and their concerns were determined by lifestyle that sees them continuing with their studies and living longer with their parents. This may very well be so but would not the soundness or otherwise of a party’s overall policies count as well?
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Joseph Muscat makes a big deal of being “young” because he doesn’t have much else to make a big deal of.
“would not the soundness or otherwise of a party’s overall policies count as well?”
Isn’t that why Labour’s a turn off to the young, unless they’re members of FZL?
Could also be that little Joey has surrounded himself with tne near dead.
With the same line of reasoning, if 38 isn’t young for a 20 year old, how does a 60-something conservative prime minister appeal to 20 year olds?
[Daphne – NEITHER seems young to an 18-year-old, but the 59-year-old isn’t selling himself as young and acts his age. That’s the difference. What 18-year-olds find totally creepy and shy away from if people old enough to be their parents trying to hang out with them and imagining that they are their contemporaries. I remember this through experience, even if you don’t.]
I think that every leader will market himself based on the strongest traits he/she has over the other opponent.
When it was Gonzi vs Sant, Gonzi promoted himself as the ideal family man, which highlighted the fact that Sant was no longer married.
Now it’s old vs young, and I don’t see anything fascinating about this. But I do understand where you’re coming from: 18-year-olds do think that 38 year olds are, in fact, old.
Stipends bla bla bla. The only country in the world where people expect a stipend to further their education. In the US people in their 30’s are still paying off their student loans and in Malta we EXPECT a stipend. Hilarious.
Hilarious? That doesn’t say much for your sense of humour, johnusa.
As a father of a 19yr old, 2nd year university student, and a 15yr old who will hopefully follow suit, I think the stipend system is an absolute marvel!
Johnusa is right; the government should stop this ‘ stipendji’ handouts: it smacks of outdated socialism.
Now Neil Dent, that is, a typical old-fashioned Labour, anzi socialist, mentality.
I repeat the same question that I have been asking over and over again, why do we Maltese EXPECT the government to pay us for continuing our education?
In the US a bachelor degree would cost you around 30,000$.
In Malta, not only is it free, but the government has to pay the students to read for one.
On a different but similar note, in Malta we complain about waiting for 6 hours at the ER, but we all forget that it is free.
In the US, for instance, you’d still wait 6 hours and then you receive a bill. And it’s not a 50euro bill. Sometimes a simple checkup and a chest x-ray totals around $2000. And if you don’t have medical insurance, you’re screwed.
So yeah, my sense of humor is spot on, thank you very much.
Needless to say, I agree with johnusa. Stipends are nothing but an expensive way to decrease our unemployment levels. A piece of gvern hanin idiocy which keeps our students lazy, our universities underfunded and crowded, our dole queues manageable, and our people stuck to Big Government’s Handout Teat.
Exactly – it is Labour promoting their ‘Leader Zaghzuh’, not the PN who prefer to be elected on merit, not gimmicks.
I’m middle aged – but hang on, I’m only four years older than that whipper-snapper Joseph.
Labour is attractive to the middle-aged, who want to become rich overnight to stop working and catch up with lost time.
Joseph is twice the age of first time voters, with half their brain power.
His brain power is nevertheless better than yours and your incompetent prime minister put together multiplied by infinity!
I remember that a couple of years ago, in one of those Malta Labour Party manifestations in Valletta – the ones where the Labour crowd looks forward more to the pastizzi and imqaret at the end of the event rather than the speeches by Joseph, Toni and Anglu – one of the placards said “Iz-Zaghzagh wara Joseph.”
Now we find out that it is just not true.
That’s because the younger are wiser.
I would be very surprised indeed if the 18-24 bracket did NOT turn to the PN.
Their standard of education is certainly much higher than the national average although still low by European criteria.
However it is high enough to enable them to separate the wheat from the chaff.