This is appalling
He said there were many “genuine Nationalists” who wanted to defect to Labour but were afraid they would not be accepted or believed. Urging supporters not to push away these people, he said: “They might be asking: who will believe us and look out for us? And I tell them: Joseph Muscat will.”
– The Times, today, reporting Joseph Muscat’s speech yesterday
I just cannot believe we have reached the stage where a political leader and prospective prime minister can say something so shocking in public, only to have the newspapers report it and the rest of us read it without noticing that there is anything seriously amiss.
Have we all had our way of looking at things so very badly corrupted?
What is the Labour leader saying here, exactly? Well, I’ll spell it out.
Joseph Muscat said that he is being approached by individuals who have long supported the Nationalist Party, and who tell him that they wish to support Labour but are afraid that they will not be believed.
They want to know who will “look out for them” if they switch their vote, and the Labour leader tells them quite blatantly that he will.
WHAT?
This is beyond shameful. People who scent the strong smell of a Labour victory are now going up to Joseph Muscat and telling him that they plan to switch their vote to Labour, and will he please believe them.
Joseph Muscat calls them “genuine Nationalists” while in the same breath telling us that they plan to vote Labour. How’s that for self-contradiction?
So far, so crawling, shoddy, unprincipled and money-grubbing – but you will always have Maltese individuals like this, so no surprises there.
The shocking, shameful bit is that the Labour leader, the imminent prime minister, ACTUALLY BOASTS IN PUBLIC that he has been approached by people who want him to believe that they are truly switching their vote from PN to MLP, that they are registering a favour to be called in at some point, and that they are actually ASKING HIM FOR SOMETHING IN RETURN.
This is disgusting. I fully expect the sort of individuals who are forever looking for something in return to behave so squalidly, but I do not expect a potential prime minister to encourage them in their behaviour.
If you remove the ‘trading favours’ aspect from the equation, what Joseph Muscat said is completely nonsensical and illogical. We vote by secret ballot. Nobody knows how we truly vote. Somebody who wants to vote Labour instead of PN this time will just go ahead and do so.
So where does ‘afraid of not being believed’ come into it?
Is the ballot sheet going to suddenly squawk and say, when they tick the red boxes: “Uh oh. You’re a liar. You voted PN last time and now you’re voting Labour. Can’t have that. I’m not accepting this vote”?
Those people going up to Muscat and telling him that they are going to vote for him instead of voting PN do so for one reason only: they want something in return and will be calling in favours, or they wish the Labour Party to give them special treatment and look kindly on them. Or they simply wish, because of Labour’s terrible reputation, to avoid Labour harassment.
“Look, I know you’ve always known me to be a PN supporter, but this time I’m voting Labour. So don’t give me a hard time when you’re in government.”
Whichever way you look at it, it’s not something for Muscat to show off about.
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I think that he is trying very hard to demoralize the PN and its supporters; he is trying to say that thwre are a lot who would like to go to the PL.
However, I feel that the Nationalists, with their shortcomings and most of all ignoring – completely – the calls from the supporters these last four years -are still much better than the others. Just have a look at Joe Grima’s Facebook – it tells you all.
These ‘Nationalists’ must be voting Labour because they have lost faith in the present government. At the same time they want to make sure that the Malta Labour Party knows that they are voting Labour, so in future they will not be harassed and hassled.
Deep down these people know that Labour has not changed.
It’s not as if those disgruntled Nationalists have any other choice left to them, what with Gonzi vowing to stay on until he pops his clogs. PN take heed etc. but who’s listening?
Jujube-brained Joe.
Meta xi hadd ikollu idejh fil-but u jibda jhawwad u jidher li qed jitpaxxa, nghidu li qed itella in-novanta.
Spot on Daphne, as ever. These undecided traditional PN voters are scared of retribution from the LP supporters who have a history of violence and revenge.
Unlike Dr Alfred Sant, Dr Muscat would not be able to reign in his violent supporters, he does not command the same respect his predecessors did.
The LP must never be trusted, they are all smiles now till they get your vote; after that, the LP will be for the staunch hodor Mintoffjani.
Ghala?? intom ghandkom xi kulur iehor jekk mhux hodor??
Ahna bojod, ghax ahna naghtu opportunita’ lil kulhadd jghix u jirnexxi (jekk jirsisti), irrelevanti lil liema partit jissaportjaw.
Izda mill-esperjenzi tal-passat, il-Labour dejjem ghen lil min hu Labour.
Basically what he’s admitting is his inability, make that reluctance, to dismiss the rot.
Add his statements regarding the remit provided to authorities and his hands off approach starts to resemble the notorious ‘mani pulite’ attitude which brought an entire nation to its kness.
Will he encourage these people to take a picture of their votiing document using a camera phone? Just to be on the safe side.
mela kif ghamlu l PN fl ahhar elezzjoni!!
I suppose that makes it OK then, right?
It is unbelievable that they have not changed their mentality after so many years and the very many mistakes they have made.
Half of the comments on Franco Debono’s blog are from “ex-PN” and “kont Nazzjonalist” types who feel that this government has neglected them.
The type of people who feel entitled to a job mal-gvern or favourable treatment because “il-gvern taghna”.
This comes from the Mintoffian days where his supporters were truly the chosen ones, who got the jobs, plots, permits, etc. Unfortunately, this mentality persists, and PN supporters who didn’t get the same favours when “their” party was in power feel hard done by.
Franco’s blog is the perfect place for these people to vent. He’s one of them, after all.
If anyone writes in defence of Gonzi or the PN, there is a chorus of “jaqaw qed tpappiha ma dal-gvern?” or “Donnok wiehed minn dawk li qed tiehu l-kuntratti u l-konsulenzi”.
It will take decades to change this mentality, especially when Joseph Muscat is doing his utmost to appeal to these sorts.
Well said.
As Joseph turns the clock back, the damage he’s causing to polticial maturity and discourse, the idea of sustainable development and its logical evolution, is untold.
He’s not just bringing to the fore these degenerative traits, we’ve seen it happen on these islands, he’s actually promoting slippage in the deadlines this country has to face in the future.
Real deadlines, which require a forma mentis which this government, I’m afraid, hasn’t been able to verbalise. Joseph’s movement is the abrogation of all standards we’ve seen introduced to date, the accelerated evolution to virtual society, (which on an overcrowded island, takes on critical dimesnions) and the revision of quality.
The PN needs to move away from NETspeak and define the organic characteristics of its work. The notion that Labour won’t even have a clue will set in automatically. Never have words been so crucial to clarity, Joseph’s cheapskate hard sell, I think, needs to be put into much better perspective.
At least one of the government’s consultants is not only a Labour supporter but a future Labour candidate – Cyrus Engerer, consultant for the Ministry for Resources and Rural Affairs (at least according to his LinkedIn profile).
You’re in for more surprises Daphne. Its not about favours and you are misreading it all.
You have underestimated Joseph Muscat for far too long, and you’ll eventually be gobsmacked and go into hibernation before reappearing.
[Daphne – Right you are. Now that you’re online, please explain the Labour Party’s total, 20-year fixation on a newspaper columnist. Because it really foxes me. But maybe I’ve underestimated myself too, and not just Joseph Muscat. I am in for no surprises. I can read polls and numbers. And I write consistently from the perspective of an assumed Labour victory. What I don’t do, however, is give any credit for this to Joseph Muscat because, as I said, I can read polls and numbers. All Muscat had to do to win this one was just sit there and stare. But that was always going to be obvious, because Sant almost won the last one, and look what sort of chap he was.
If it’s not about favours or the wish for protection against Labour harassment, then what is it about? Why would anyone make a point of going up to the Labour leader to tell him they are going to vote for him and ask who will look out for them?]
I can’t explain the fixation you refer to because I always thought of it as being so illogical and needless.
The way I’ve always seen it was that ignoring you would get the worst out of you, which would in turn be your own undoing.
[Daphne – The mistake you make is to see it in terms of ‘ignoring’ or ‘paying attention to’. I am not Franco Debono. I do not suffer from the same psychological difficulties. I write for my audience, and not for attention.]
Alfred Sant handled this brilliantly and it worked.
[Daphne – Exactly how did it work? I kept writing, and he kept flailing politically. So you see, we both did our work happily.]
Notwithstanding your prodding, he ignored you totally and that drove you mad. (So ironic that you resorted to claims of mental infirmity so often with respect to others in the political scene).
[Daphne – It did not ‘drive me mad’. The general tone of practically everything I write is scathing, not cross. Having known Alfred Sant for years in a familial context that has nothing to do with politics (our children are cousins), the last thing I would have wanted is attention from him. And the last thing he would have done is given it. But that, I assure you, has absolutely nothing to do with politics, nor was it political strategy on his part. It has nothing to do with you, however, so I won’t be explicit.]
Your blog has made the situation even worse. At the end of the day, it was counter productive, as the once incisive (and to a certain extent balanced) writings, soon became a repetition of the same old song. The shine soon faded and the extent of credibility one was inclined to extend to you went down a slippery slope. I, for one, fall within this category.
[Daphne – Mandango, you are a damaged individual who oscillates between posting seemingly drunken insults in obscene language, which I don’t upload, and ‘please love me back’ overtures in this vein. And you have made it consistently clear that you are a Laburist. So please, if there is no older woman who fascinates you in the Labour Party, and if Marie Louise Coleiro doesn’t quite do it for you, then tough. I am not going to start sharing your political opinions just because you’d rather have a fixation on somebody who does than on somebody who doesn’t.]
I do not know what the exact spoken words were yesterday, yet the message is clear:
Traditional Labour supporters might not like the shape of things to come in terms of how a labour govt will use all of the country’s (human) resources to get the best deal for the country.
That’s the surprise I was referring to, that is, seeing faces where you’d least expect them.
‘Traditional Labour supporters might not like the shape of things to come in terms of how a labour govt will use all of the country’s (human) resources to get the best deal for the country.’
Enough said. Get your act together and stop the backstabbing prior to getting elected.
MIntoff and KMB managed to turn it onto us, Sant didn’t.
You’re the liability, all of you. If you think a leader needs to acknowledge this rot, perversely legitmising it to obtain some obscene balanced view, are you saying the country should adapt?
You’re decades late.
“The Labour Party’s total, 20-year fixation on a newspaper columnist.”
You’ve got that arse about face as we say back home. Shouldn’t it be a newspaper columnists 20-year fixation on anything Labour related?
[Daphne – James Tyrrell, it is a political columnist’s JOB to write about political parties and politicians. It is not a political party’s job to relentlessly pursue and fixate upon a newspaper columnist. You make the classic error of failing to distinguish between the nature of the participants in this ongoing battle: political party + media machine vs woman with blog and newspaper column.]
As for PN supporters jumping ship do you really find that so surprising? I have been speaking to lifelong PN voters for years now who tell me that they are voting Labour next time round.
[Daphne – Astrid Vella comes from a Labour background. Her grandfather was a Labour politico. Read what I write, more diligently than you do already: smart Sliema background does not equal PN. Rather the opposite, in very many cases, including my own (though no longer, as you can see).]
The funny part is that a lot of them are jumping ship because they no longer want to be associated with a party that is connected in any way to you.
[Daphne – Well, then obviously your friends are intellectually challenged. People who can think do not choose their government on the basis of whether they like or dislike a newspaper columnist.]
Still insisting on the James Tyrell shit I see. Please don’t imagine that you know me or know anything about me because you don’t. And what in God’s name does Astrid Vella have to do with anything I wrote? Did I happen to mention her name at some point and forget about it or is she another of your childish little fixations? I have to admit that even though I don’t know the woman anyone who can get under your skin the way she must do is okay by me.
I can assure you also that none of my friends are as you put it intellectually challenged, they just have taste and care about who they are seen to associate with. Obviously you are not the main reason for their intention to switch to Labour as you’re not really that important. The main reason is that retard Muppet you have for a Prime Minister and the totally useless scum he has put in place to support him. I mean Gatt is a perfect example. I wouldn’t trust that idiot to clean my toilet!
[Daphne – How much taste must you have to befriend a loser from Northern Ireland, Mr Tyrell? I mention Astrid Vella because you’re keen on her. Austin Gatt is many things, not all of them good, but an idiot he most certainly is not. Now please run along and find a sheep. There was a story in The Times about wounded sheep in a pen somewhere round my neck of the woods the other day. Was that you getting out of hand?]
Thank god, someone did pick this up and find it as disgusting as I did.
I was shocked, angry and offended when I heard him say this on TV.
It is inexcusable that a potential prime minister actually said this. This ONE COMMENT alone is enough for anyone in his right state of mind to make the wise choice and keep Muscat and his clan as far away as possible from a position of power.
I am voting PN and am very proud of my choice despite any retributions that might come my way if the PL comes to power.
I do not have to prove my vote to anyone and I SHOULD not need Joseph Muscat or anyone else, for that matter, to guarantee my safety and my job, should I declare to favour the Nationalist Party, if the Pl comes to power.
Come on people, think and make your decision wisely, this is not a joke any more.
He just hinted at the fact that without his guarantee there will be retributions. Wake up, please, leave all petty issues aside and vote wisely.
Thank you, Daphne, continue the good work.
I, for one, acknowledge our new Labour overlords.
I don’t like this personality cult that, in my opinion, seems to be forming around Muscat and the PL.
Why all the fear? What do they think is going to happen to them either way?
Personally I believe there is more to it than just favours, that it is all about exclusion and inclusion. But from what?
They way I see it, Dr Muscat will be “looking out for” his supporters only. This, along with the usual taunt of ” Issa you’ll see what we will do when we’re in government” makes for a chilling prospect.
This wouldn’t be difficult to do.
Dr Muscat already has the list of everyone who has pledged their allegiance to the PL when he got everyone to register with the party (wasn’t there some sort of prize or something?).
Now all those who didn’t follow suit feel like they have missed the boat and are scrambling to get aboard before it’s too late and no one believes them.
I don’t like it one bit. All this anger at meetings. All this “proud to be Labour” rubbish.
Apart from the obvious problems of being proud to vote for a party that has never done anything right in its recent history, pride should be reserved for something you accomplish, not for something you just get to do once every five years by ticking a box.
If Dr Muscat expects me to be afraid of voting for the PN then he is greatly mistaken. I will not be afraid to do anything of the sort.
If and when he is prime minister, I would expect him to treat me and everyone else with the same respect and dignity with which he treats his supporters. Anything else would mean his is just emulating Mintoff (which is what I thought he has been doing all this time) and favouring some and discriminating against the others, leaving the country more fractured than it has ever been.
Would someone, anyone, please do something to heal this country’s wound?
Can we please stop repeating our past mistakes? No one should be afraid of a political party. These brown-nosers who have been going up to Muscat had better reflect on exactly what is motivating them to do this.
If it is through fear of what might happen after the election, then maybe they might want to reflect on what that means and says about the PL. And about them, too.
‘They way I see it, Dr Muscat will be “looking out for” his supporters only.’
The first thing Mintoff did, was to revise the statute of the MLP, transforming it into a source of his plebiscite. Most of them are still there, the mentality as strong as ever. It’s THEIR party, when elected it will be THEIR government. They call it social justice.
Joseph’s speech yesterday was a balancing act between the two contrasting concepts. He thinks he’ll manage when in power as well, problem is, at that point his interest will be to maintain his position. Doesn’t take much to realise what will happen, the decisions taken will be flawed compromises.
This is the party which refuses continuity, confusing the national for itself, where a congress is reduced to the demonstration of ‘unity’, whatever that implies.
There’s a solution to this madness, albeit bizarre; Imagine the PN demanding, by right, to be included within the movement en bloc. Fascinating.
Did we forget that this is nothing new? Time back Hon Debono Grech was quoted to have said “l- bieb miftuh ghall-Laburisti biss”!
Debono certainly put the cat among the pigeons.
Who are we to believe? The “youthful” untried leader of the supposedly “new Labour”, or the survivor from the MLP past, who Joseph Muscat embraced back into the folds of the party together with all the others who “chose to go to hell” and who are willing to do so again, dragging the rest of the country with them?
There is a time for everything – time for sowing, time for reaping, etc. Time for positive-governing (PN) time for negative-disorder (PL), so if the positive people do not genuinely work to win this election – I just think it is the hour of negativity and gloom.
I believe that the vast majority of comments by “ex nazzjonalist” and such like are from hard-core Labour supporters.
More than that, I feel sure that their leaders have put them to the task of posing as disgruntled PN supporters in order to fan the flames as it were.
I frequently find out, after a profile check on Facebook, just how absolutely Labour they really are and expose them so the readers will know it’s a Labour supporter posing as a floater or a disgruntled Nationalist.
Joseph Muscat intends to provide protection (from what?) to those PN voters who switch to PL.
Can he tell us what he intends to do to those PN voters who have no intention of switching?
As an aside, note the body language in the photograph. It seems that Joseph Muscat walked alongside Lambertz and Gennez specifically to have this photograph taken. He is evidently not part of the conversation.
His face is saying “Hey, coconut, am I close enough to have my photo taken?”
Kikeu kull min qal li hu Nazzjonalist u dar Labour illum lanqas hawn Nazzjonalist iehor. Ghidlu ma jdahhaqniex.
“I just cannot believe we have reached the stage where a political leader and prospective prime minister can say something so shocking in public, only to have the newspapers report it and the rest of us read it without noticing that there is anything seriously amiss” (DCG)
That is not quite correct. The public has learnt that what Joseph Muscat says is not always what he actually meant to say and that it would be prudent to wait for the subsequent expurgated revisions and only then decide what to believe,
How can anyone vote for someone who is clearly stating that when he is prime minister he will make preferences with people who vote labour?
I ask him what about those who vote PN? Does this mean that they will be discriminated against? What kind of social justice would that be?
A good and just government works for the good of ALL the people. This is what the PN government does and that is why I will vote PN and I am proud of it.
Unbelievable. He seems to think he’s the Dalai Lama.
I’ve already had four Laburisti in a span of two weeks asking me ‘Trid inlaqqghek ma Joseph?’. As if. No thank you.
I do not see why anyone who wishes to change the preference of his vote has to explain his action to his new favourite, unless, that is, s/he expects something in return. Joseph Muscat is giving the impression that he is willing to accept and defend anyone, no questions asked.
Unless he is careful, he might easily find that his catch contains some stinking fish.
Ask those who voted Alfred Sant on the pretext that he was doing away with VAT and spent the days after the election towing the cash register behind their car. Ha ha, they had to buy a new one.
So much for trusting Labour.
Just wondering! Are the leaders of the main political parties exchanging notes about the identity of those voters who are claiming that they are changing allegiances? And what would they do about those who make assurance doubly sure by appearing on the the list of both?
I suggest they pass on that list to JPO.
ara xi hlew – vera ?