PN report on the general election result
Published:
June 5, 2013 at 12:32am
A summary of the report was released to the media this evening. You can read it here Sommarju Eżekuttiv
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Il-bloggers ta’ simpatija Nazzjonalista
Kien hemm min qalilna li l-Partit Nazzjonalista spiċċa weħel b’dak kollu li persuni li
jissimpatizzaw miegħu kienu qegħdin jiktbu fil-blogs tagħhom. Ħafna oħrajn esprimew ilveduta li mnalla kien hemm dawn il-bloggers għaliex dawn kienu qed jagħmlu dak li
suppost kien qed jagħmel il-Partit. Iżda ħafna ħassew li l-Partit Nazzjonalista messu fittex
li b’mod ripetut jiddiżassoċja ruħu minn dawn il-blogs meta dawn kienu jinkludu
kummenti ta’ natura personali.
Sincerely, do you think this applies to yourself?
i dont want to justify anything, it does not matter. What you think matter.
[Daphne – What I think was, is and will always remain this: that the Nationalist Party stands for freedom of speech, the Labour Party does not, and anybody who doesn’t believe in freedom of speech knows exactly who to vote for, which is exactly what happened. This is a fundamental human right we are talking about, and not a matter of opinion.
Malta is relatively new to freedom of speech and my generation in particular grew up in a society alien to it, so they have been conditioned to believe in controls on freedom of expression that go beyond the permissible ones on libel. I had a slightly different upbringing in that I was constantly and regularly exposed to the British print media and that is my own particular conditioning. It is true to say that I had a bit of an unfair advantage, but the fact remains that in a western European/North American context, it is my views on this matter and my writing in general which are normal and ‘industry-standard’, and not those of my critics and opponents.
Malta is not only new to freedom of speech, but Maltese society is by its very nature innately suspicious of it, seeing it as a source of trouble rather than a safeguard against trouble. In a small and very restricted society it is quite usual for people to say nothing that might upset others on the principle that you might need something from the person you upset or from their friends/family. While this makes life easier on an individual by individual basis, it has turned Malta into a peculiar sort of hell where nothing is said in public and far too much is whispered, and where people do not have friends but only useful contacts, fellow pack-members and human insurance for survival.
Any suggestion by the Nationalist Party that it has anything less than a live-and-let-live approach to the independent media and commentators will lead to a haemorrhage of votes, and they will not be the same ones that it has haemorrhaged already. If what these people are saying here is that they voted Labour to spite people like me, then clearly the problem lies with them and not with me or with others they may have wished to spite, and the only person who can help them is not a politician or even a journalist, but a psychologist.
I champion free speech, and no amount of bitching and whining by the mental paupers in our midst is going to change that. Malta is in social transition. Expect these difficulties.]
Do not hide under the veil of championing “PN policies”, I am of the opinion that no matter who was in government, your championing for the truth would not have been in any kind of peril.
Why is it that you have to apply your genius to just a segment of society? Why do you have to be adamant about the fact that no matter what, you are not for turning.
I cannot say that I understand your situation, because that would be presumptuous, but why are you so adverse to having your knowledge and experience laid out in a way and manner that, would cater for the masses?
If it is the truth that you ‘preach’, is it not a matter for yourself to exhibit it in the most pragmatic method possible?
I do not post any comments under any ‘nom de plume’ so I would rather you not answer this question at all if not with what you truly believe is the correct manner of answering such a question.
[Daphne – Nowhere did I say that I champion ‘PN policies’. Freedom of speech is not a PN policy, but a fundamental human right. The PN stands for that, Labour does not. Never did, doesn’t now. Look at the way the Labour Party uses its entire machine to try to grind me down in any way possible – that is not an attack on Daphne Caruana Galizia. In essence, it’s a systematic attack on the freedom of individuals to criticise it in a way it doesn’t like.
My championing of the truth might never have been in peril, Richard, but I have certainly been imperilled and so has my home and those in it.
What do you mean by masses – masses as in ‘thousands of people’ or masses as in ‘working-class’? I have had masses of readers for more than two decades. As the saying goes, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Also, I am not on a mission to preach to multitudes: that’s for priests and politicians, and for people with household appliances to sell. I started out in 1990 with the sole intention of filling a yawning gap in the newspaper market by trying to be the voice of people who think as I do, and somehow it worked. Lots of people think the way I do, but they can’t all write and say it, and the ‘commentocracy’ has over the last few years come to be dominated by people singing from the same tedious hymn-sheet, with only a couple of notable exceptions.
Genius, my eye. I just happen to have one particular and fairly unusual ability: rapid synthesis of a situation and concurrent distillation into language, which translated into English means that I think very quickly and in proper sentences, and this allows me to write everything down even as I am thinking it – like taking dictation from my own mind. But I have to be interested in the subject, otherwise it’s like Sunday night homework.]
Personally I find a lot of what was said to be over rated, although one understands some of the issues raised.
However I also find some aspect of it all very curious.
Consider this: Gonzi, had some great strengths but made a few mistakes along the way gets a thrashing and so many people just down right hate him.
Mintoff and KMB: created hell on Earth, were responsible for the destruction of the environment, economy, freedom, civil liberties…..well the list goes on. And they not only lose the election by less, but even after they are gone and replaced by Sant, Labour still retains a big base. The last election was won because of an addition to that base.
There was never a rejection of Labour of the past. We never saw Labour dip heavily in votes. They always maintained a strong 40-something percent. That 40% never budged, even after 25 years of growth, prosperity and revolutionary improvements.
So what on Earth do these people value?
Ooops, I’m sorry I forgot. We’re not supposed to mention any of that because then the PL voters won’t have an argument.
I totally agree with you. I cannot fathom why this is so in Malta.
Gonzi lead Malta through very troubled waters with terrific results but for a lot of PN supporters what matters are their individual needs.
Just listening to Radio 101 and the mantra – I suffered, the minister did not grant my wish – the list is endless.
The national interest – what’s that? I can’t be bothered with it.
I fully agree. I blame this, above all and amongst other reasons, on the fact that the Maltese are not actually intellectual, despite the upsurge in academic students.
Our University just produces more doctors, lawyers, engineers, etc. but highly intellectually-challenged students. Consequently, I believe that our education system has somewhere failed.
Very well said, Daphne. It will take at least one more generation to truly understand and accept freedom of speech
What an unbelievably unfair conclusion the below is, when the arrogance of certain ministers, which cascaded down to their staff and annoyed no end the public at large, was an obvious cause of the loss of thousands of votes.
“Il-bloggers ta’ simpatija Nazzjonalista
Kien hemm min qalilna li l-Partit Nazzjonalista spiċċa weħel b’dak kollu li persuni li jissimpatizzaw miegħu kienu qegħdin jiktbu fil-blogs tagħhom. Ħafna oħrajn esprimew il- veduta li mnalla kien hemm dawn il-bloggers għaliex dawn kienu qed jagħmlu dak li suppost kien qed jagħmel il-Partit. Iżda ħafna ħassew li l-Partit Nazzjonalista messu fittex li b’mod ripetut jiddiżassoċja ruħu minn dawn il-blogs meta dawn kienu jinkludu kummenti ta’ natura personali.”
[Daphne – It’s not a conclusion, Oscar. It’s a report on feedback the Commission received, and that feedback was in turn based on perceptions of what other people think. The common-sense reality is that nobody votes against a newspaper columnist, unless they are or should be resident in a psychiatric hospital. They vote against politicians or for politicians BUT LARGELY FOR THEMSELVES. I disagree with this sort of soul-searching and my inclinations are entirely different – rather than studying why it lost, the PN should study why Labour won. Studying why one lost in any area of life is a waste of time which is better spent studying why others won. Labour would have won whatever the PN did or didn’t do, after this length of time, because there is a chunk of people who think that change is good in itself even if the results are bad (that is not a contradiction in terms, even if it sounds like one). What made a difference is the margin by which Labour won. That margin can be attributed to a myriad different factors, but there is only one overarching reason: somebody read the manual I’ve just pulled off my shelves. That manual is Sasha Issenberg’s The Victory Lab (Crown Publishing, USA, 2012). The techniques examined in this book, distilled down to their essence, strike me as being rooted in two Victorian maxims, but substituting votes for money: ‘Look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves’ and (legend on my grandmother’s childhood money-box) ‘Every little makes more’. Labour systematically targetted and collected as many piles of loose change/small change as it possibly could, and is so doing amassed a fortune. That’s all.]
This blog never ever went close to inspiring me to vote Labour. I believe it is the only publication that can now tell us all “I told you so”.
Not everybody uses common sense. However I think the report alludes to the fact that there could have been a small number of voters who voted against the PN because the PN did not once issue a statement distancing itself from your constant personal attacks. This of course is your right. Whether it was politically correct or not is a matter for debate. I think the report alludes to the fact that a political party which does not distance itself from an member/supporter or any individual aligned to it whose actions may be percieved to cost it votes is bound to act. It did not. This is all academic and in fact 20-20 hindsight. The reality is that the total number of such votes (or non votes) would have been minimal and would have had no effect on the final result.
[Daphne – Yes, unfortunately Maltese society has moved far materially but not in other ways. There is plenty of formal education but not much real education of the sort where the basis is formed at home during childhood and then built upon through curiosity and initiative, experience and wide reading and absorption. There was an interview in The Times, given by a professor of education, some weeks ago, in which he said that the poor level of educational development in Malta is risky for democracy because it leaves people unable to properly analyse information and assess situations, and this leads to a ‘democratic deficit’. I have noticed that many people, even highly educated ones (formally educated, that is) have really serious problems seeing what the real issues and implications are when something occurs. It is frustrating and worrying. Political parties cannot ‘distance themselves’ from columnists and commentators because that in itself is a value judgement on the columnist/commentator, and an act which can and will be interpreted as seeking to condition that writer one way or another.
There is another point. The Nationalist Party’s commission, in this exercise, has made the same mistake the party itself has made over and over again in the last five years at least, which is to confuse perception and received wisdom with scientifically-analysed reality. What people think happened is totally irrelevant for any kind of marketing analysis, and this includes political marketing, which is the purpose here. Marketing research has to show what actually did happen, and not what respondents think happened. In other words, ‘I think some people voted Labour because they don’t like what Daphne writes’ is an opinion and not a fact and it is dangerous to present it as a fact of what actually happened because the motivation for people saying such a thing is obvious: in itself personal animosity, rivalry, petty issues with the individual, or dislike. The question that has to be put to a respondent who says that is, “Did YOU do that?” The answer will be no (of course, because there are not that many psychiatric patients around), so, well then, what is the point of saying what you think people did. What you need here is a proper analysis, based on surveys, of why people voted the way they did: why THEY voted a certain way and not why they think OTHER PEOPLE voted the way they did. We can never know why others chose to vote for party X or party Y unless we ask them directly.
I am afraid the Nationalist Party is going to repeat the same mistakes in basing its decisions on hunches and ‘feelings’ – theirs and other people’s – if this is the start to it. Selling a political party is like selling everything else. You can forget the hunches, the focus groups and the glorified gossip about what people think. That’s how the Labour Party got where it did. Three years of sustained scientific marketing research followed by a two-year campaign based on the results, at every level and covering all bases, from the negative use of its media to denigrate its enemies to positive social outreach to carefully targeted groups and individuals.]
Well said, Daphne. My thoughts exactly.
Political parties in healthy democracies can and do distance themselves from commentators when a comment can be perceived as injurious to that political party.Value judgments are a fact of life. The distancing itself should not and generally is not construed and should not be seen to condition the commentator. Especially in healthy democracies where freedom of speech is paramount. It would be the decision of the commentator to either continuing to pursue their point or else choose to be conditioned. Perception ,although often wrong will still contribute to peoples life decisions, in this context voting.If a number have a perception, however wrong it may be, it is still a problem for the political party that the perception exists. No scientific evidence based analysis is ever going to change that.
Daphne was the only sane voice in a sea of darkness and madness, and still is.
I’m not sure whether there were people who voted Labour because of Daphne (sounds stupid), but I’m sure there were people who voted Labour after Gonzi took so long to discipline and control the trio of rebels.
The PN looked weak and this caused us to enter in election campaign mode for at least 18 months. People became sick of politics and were eager for change.
I’ll go as far as saying that the PN can never win against this lot precisely because it has no Daphnes in its ranks.
God, if it had half a dozen men and women with that clarity of thought, that laser-beam language and that active brain, it would have swept the field with the numpters on the other side. Daphne’s on MY dream team, and no mistake.
I will assume that this is really a summary of the whole report, and that nothing has been censored.
If so, I am truly astonished. The report says more about its writers than about the truth. There is absolutely no mention of the No. 1 killer in the last five years – institutionalised corruption.
By this I do not mean actionable corruption, but all its manifestations which are perfectly legal, but profoundly wrong – cronyism, favouritism, householdnameism (particularly bad, this) and the inability to recognise incompetence.
Labour is of course all of this and much, much worse. But that’s not the point. The point is that voters have vastly higher expectations of PN. They promised us work, justice and freedom.
Work and freedom they have delivered, by the bucket. But justice goes way beyond the Law. And on this, they have failed, letting old wounds fester and opening some new ones. An irreproachable government it certainly was not.
Hear, hear. Here’s hoping there are enough intelligent people reading the report within the PN to realise how much it depends on the (sometimes mistaken) perception of the participants.
Hear, hear. Talk about hitting the nail on the head.
Exactly.
Perfect and succinct conclusion. The NP under Gonzi delivered successfully and outstandingly regarding our fundamental freedoms and economic successes, such as job creation when all around us was collapsing. But it arrogantly neglected to provide elementary justice even to those who were faithfully committed to its support. It went to the opposite extreme of throwing to the dogs aggrieved Nationalists with legitimate complaints against the (un)civil administration and appeasing and rewarding handsomely renegades who were hell-bent on its destruction and who were evidently acting in league with the enemy and even when that meant sacrificing its own elect. Loyalty should work both ways and not exclusively from the bottom upwards at election time.
Precisely.
Daphne is right.
They are mistaken in this report when they say the PN should have distanced itself from bloggers. There is freedom of speech and everyone can say what they like.
The pn could have distanced itself and the bloggers could still continue with their point of view. That would be real freedom of speech in action. No blogger should be beholden to political parties direction .
So PN actually had a real problem with corruption? I still doubt that this would have caused a serious drop in votes however, everyone knows that Labour are much more corrupt than PN.
But people EXPECT Labour to be corrupt. That’s the whole point. They also expect favours from the PN and expect it to be immaculate, and cannot see the giant contradiction in this.
This election has been an eye-opener. I used to think a majority of the electorate voted for EU membership because they wanted a European way of life. I was wrong. Only a minority did. The same minority, give or take, that voted PN this time round. The others just wanted to cash in. When they didn’t, they turned home to mama. Home to Labour, where they belong in the head and in the heart.
P.S. That report is utter crap. I could have done much better.
I think that this whole exercise was a waste of time and effort, and I am quite disappointed that Ms. Fenech participated in this. This report is equivalent to a Xarabank discussion – loud, vulgar, and based on street gossip.
Xarabank participants are typically the least informed and the most assertive, and hence come across as experts.
I did not send any comments to the PN committee on purpose, since (i) I did not believe in this useless exercise, (ii) the expertise on the matter of the committee members is questionable (perhaps except for Ann Fenech) and (iii) the reasons were widely known.
Some of these widely known reasons could have been addressed after the 2009 EP elections.
This report is no better that the one compiled years ago by Godfrey Grima, a person who at the end of the day dislikes the PN.
At this stage the report is only a list of perceived grievances by those consulted or those who had a chip on their shoulder, justified or not.
Whether or not the exercise was a waste of time can only be ascertained later and after a calm evaluation of the suggested deficiencies.
The report essentially says that Labour won it by default, which I totally agree with.
That in turn leads me to conclude that the PN can do little to win the next election. It can only win it if Labour messes up big time in the core areas of employment and health services – something which they are well on their way in doing.
To me it is clear that many Laburisti used the PN feedback opportunity to pose as disgruntled Nazzjonalisti and falsely claim that ‘bloggers made me vote Labour’.
Their strategy seems to be – we can’t stop them by violence, and we can’t stop them by coercion, so we’ll try to cut off their (falsely perceived) support from the Nationalist Party.
My question is – what will be their next strategy once this fails, too?
What the PN failed to recognise is that a significant proportion of the electorate is now made up of largely unprincipled, dull-witted, self-serving, and opportunistic individuals, nurtured on a constant diet of tele-shopping, that is forever ready to grab at any ‘free prize’ scam that is presented to it.
Equally unprincipled and self-serving, but not so dull-witted, Labour identified that and exploited it to the full.
Re your paragraph 1. PN certainly did not ‘fail to recognize’ the facts as described by you. By its very nature, however and even if too idealistically, it could not pander to them – still less exploit them unscrupulously as Labour did now and so many times before.
Re your paragraph 2. Saying that Labour is ‘not so dull-witted’ is very mild and complementary indeed. I would think ‘diabolically opportunistic’ would be a more appropriate description.
Amen.
I think the PN commission omitted one major reason for the heavy PN loss – people were disappointed that they didn’t get personal favours. It is something no one wants to admit publicly, but it is the truth about Maltese people.
Sure, people complained about corruption and the klikka, but in the end what does Malta taghna lkoll mean?
I cannot believe people actually thought Malta taghna lkoll meant meritocracy. No, it meant if the government didn’t give me xyz, Joseph will give me xyz. Of course, it didn’t matter that the previous govt gave us the opportunities, most people prefer being made a “pjacir” rather than work hard to improve one’s situation.
Jien Nazzjonalist u bqajt nikkonvinci ruhi matul dawn l-ahhar kwart ta` seklu grazzi ghal kitba tieghek.
Too many voters believed that what they were denied wasn’t a favour but it was elementary justice and protection from greedy “pinkish” civil servants with a hidden agenda to create dissatisfaction and/or to receive bribes otherwise they wouldn’t give due service.
One NP family I know was actually insulted by a prime minister intent to protect MEPA when just before the election he had promised redress as soon as he took over responsibility for a MEPA that remained a monster out of control at law and accountable only to itself under various guises.
I fail to understand why the NP would publish a “why we lost the last general elections” report to begin with.
Surely it would have made more sense to keep it confidential and work on the separate issues from behind the scenes.
Not only do I find this defeatist but it’s also a case of revealing to your adversary what should be the next five years’ tactics to win votes.
Having said that, this report is just a list of the issues that we have heard ad nauseam.
It is pretty obvious that many Maltese voted Labour mainly because the PN had been in Government for 25-odd years. Too much of even a good thing tires especially in a democracy.
True, in this case the change was probably for the worse, but one cannot know that before one tries out the alternative. This is particularly true with respect to the last two generations which had never experienced a Labour government.
I also think that in Malta blaming the establishment for all your ailments is run of the mill and probably a remnant of the “kollox tort tar-regina” mentality of colonial Malta.
It is inevitable that the majority of Maltese voters suffered some form of discomfort in the last 25 years or, in any case, some reason to run the government down or feel hurt or neglected.
This was the election in which to go for it, to become a Laburist. Labour was obviously going to win this election so voting Labour and publically declaring (or whispering in the right ears) that you are a switcher guaranteed a right to ask for “pjaciri” especially when Muscat promised the moon and the stars to all and sundry.
It is as simple as that.
I sincerely hope that the Maltese are not so dumb as to decide who should govern the country on the basis of not agreeing or liking what is posted on a blog. I also find it rather silly (for want of a better term) to even suggest that that is the case in an official Nationalist Party report.
Have you any comments to make on the feedback gathered in the report? I there’s loads that could be written (just assuming at this point since I’m still going through it again).
Isn’t Ann Fenech married to Thomas Fenech, Consuelo Herrera’s first cousin?
I totally agree with the majority of the comments here. In fact it is useless adding my own as it has all been said.
In my opinion it would be a good thing if the PN commission would read these comments. I’m sure there is more to learn here than from the comments they received.
The reason why the PN lost the elections was that there was no PN. There was only a PN government.
Discuss.