80,000 electors failed to vote
Published:
May 25, 2014 at 4:56pm
Around 80,000 electors either left their voting documents uncollected, or accepted delivery and then failed to turn up to the polling-booth.
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PN these are the ones you need to target. Find out why and address it.
This means a lot. I wonder how both parties wiill interpret it.
PN go back to your roots or die a slow death. Stop trying to please everyone whilst pleasing no one.
Why should they? It’s the ignorant mass which is the issue here not the PN.
Of course…most people are ignorant and the few ‘elite’ who follow Daphne’s blog are intelligent professionals.
Pfff….no wonder why people have, and will cotninue to, vote PL. Once this mentality changes, then most people would think about voting PN again.
[Daphne – It is indeed a fact that most people in any given country are ignorant, most spectacularly in the world’s largest democracy, the United States of America – so there is nothing new in what I say. It is simply a statement of fact. Elections are all about persuading the ignorant, the intellectually challenged, the prejudiced and the indifferent. All others will work things out for themselves regardless.]
The party should definitely not go back to its roots. A good number of the voters leaving PN are doing so because of the PN’s conservative stance on many social issues (divorce, civil unions etc).
Plus – albeit a few thousand – the electors who went to the polling station and invalidated their vote. The PN would not have performed so poorly with Mario de Marco as leader.
U hallina minnek !
PN, bring out your strong women, because they are your weapons against a party of people who don’t know how to deal with women unless they come packaged like Berlusconi accessories. This is Labour’s Achilles heel.
I am one of those 80,000 – only positive stat so far.
[Daphne – I am genuinely interested in knowing why you didn’t vote for anyone at all, and I many other readers are interested too. Do please explain truthfully, bearing in mind that you have the comfort of anonymity.]
I know a few others who did not vote, exactly like you.
I will only tell you one thing. You are taking everything for granted and you have no guarantee that it will always be like this. We are still riding the PN’s wave.
The minute ‘li joqroskhom’ you will hurry back to the PN to safeguard your interests. Remember CET?
A couple of people I know said that they did not vote because they did not follow the EP election campaign (and therefore just couldn’t be bothered). I found it a real shame.
In that case I am going to use the veil of anonymity you provide to explain it.
I did not vote in Malta. I did indeed vote, but I thought it my duty as a European citizen of a greater European polity to vote in my country of residence for the parties in the country where I am resident, not Malta. Whilst I did this for ideological reasons to support the idea of a European polity much in the same way as I would want to vote for Gozitan candidates in national elections if I lived there even though I am from Malta, I also felt that the party I had the chance to vote for in my country of residence (not Malta) was actually closer to my ideals than the PN was.
I voted Christian Democracy. I was happy that my residential status gave me the opportunity to vote for a party that was part of the EPP but which was not the PN. In short, I no longer know exactly what the PN represents. I used to be more keen to vote PN when it mirrored more of my views; in short, I liked it more when it was a kind of Catholic Labour party taking inspiration from Rerum Novarum. Now I think that the PN has been taken in by a predominance of fringe issues not important to your average Joe.
Gonzi was a great leader. He just suffered the misfortune of heading a party that had governed almost uninterrupted for 25 years and was the victim of electoral fatigue. Shifting away from those Gonzi years as if they were the years of the Black Death is a grave error. Mizzi, Borg Olivier, Fenech Adami and Gonzi were all Christian Democrats and great statesmen.
Whilst Busuttil is an intelligent, man he lacks charisma and will never fill the shoes of those leaders. He is brilliant as a Technocrat, just like Monti was. But look at what happened to Monti.
The PN has misinterpreted the route it needs to take. It thought that it needed to almost deny its past ideology as if it were a stain on its reputation or claims to modernity. Instead it should embrace it, albeit allowing the various factions to co-exist in the party and to allow them to appeal to a broad range of voters.
I’m one of the 80,000, too.
To put it simply, I am unhappy with the Nationalist leadership, and I think I’m doing it a service by showing my dissatisfaction at this stage.
I’m sorry to say it, but Simon Busuttil is not fit to lead the party which turned Malta into the modern and affluent country that it is. He back-paddles. He sits on fences. His policies and performances are lacklustre at best. And this angers me the most: Joseph Muscat manipulates him any way he likes.
However, I won’t not vote, or vote Labour, in a general election.
I also admit to being somewhat cynical when it comes to the EP elections. Why should I vote for people to attend the biggest talking-shop in the world, who’ll line their pockets in the meantime?
In the EU, it’s the Council and the Commission that matter.
The number of invalidated votes remains to be seen too.
Does the figure of 80K include invalid votes?
[Daphne – No, it is the number of people who didn’t vote. People whose votes are invalid are registered as having voted all the same.]
Ah, but it includes the Maltese diaspora. Not everyone has a room in mummy & daddy’s house, or the luxury of taking a few days off, or an airport within commuting distance, or is unattached and childless, or can take wife and children for a quick jaunt to the polling booth in Malta. It bears thinking about.
The PN are a joke party, like PL were under Sant.
PN are like a family business: Poppa dies, son takes over.
The only way PN can win again is if someone with hidden agendas throws a ton of cash at it and they turn Net tv into a version of SuperOne.
Re. your last ‘assertion’.
That, I humbly suggest, will be the demise of a self-respecting political party – throwing its principles to the wind in order to buy enough votes to obtain electoral victory.
PN, with all its defects, deficiencies and defectors, is – and has never been – made of that stuff. Others could have.
Daphne, I will answer the question you put to Jack.
The problem is Simon Busuttil. Let me put the record straight. I have nothing personally against him. Indeed I voted for him for MEP.
I think he was a very effective person in Brussels. However this does not automatically make him a leader.
Many people are still incensed that some 800 councillors elect the leader, a group of people easily influenced by the party itself.
Indeed opinion polls had shown that PN voters/members would have overwhelmingly supported Dr de Marco for leader.
The perception is that Dr Busuttil lacks leadership skills, he is not a strategist, does not engage people, and comes across as inconsistent.
This is borne out by the fact that Dr Busuttil consistently trails Dr Muscat in the trust barometer by about 13% to 15% notwithstanding the latter’s shortcomings.
As I have emphasised previously there is no chance for the PN to win an election, if its leader is trailing in the trust barometer: the Sant factor in the Labour Party electoral losses.
Of course then there is the liberal side of PN, who are feeling marginalised.
If Busuttil trails Muscat in the trust barometer, that says more about the electorate’s honesty and powers of analysis than it does about Muscat and Busuttil.
On exactly what does anyone mistrust Busuttil, as opposed to a man who has consistently and repeatedly shown that he is untrustworthy, not least on the matter of EU membership?
Why this insistence on Mario Demarco? He contested the leadership and lost. The sooner his supporters accept this and stop sniping at Simon Busuttil’s heels, the sooner we can start rebuilding.
I have nothing against Demarco, but I do not like these political dynasties, this inherited right to become a politician because your father was one.
Moreover Mario Demarco lacks all the charm his father had. I disliked also the game he played in the last election. He kept his distance knowing the ship was sinking, this when he was part of the cabinet of government. This is so unlike Busuttil, who gave up a lucrative and successful position as MEP to jump on that same ship and try and salvage what he could.
Also what about the way The Times constantly attacked Lawrence Gonzi and then when Mario Demarco was appointed minister, they toned down their act? I thought that was rather despicable.
I’m sorry, I cannot agree with you. The focus has to be rebuilding the Nationlst Party.
There are enough obstacles on the way with a seriously wealthy and corrupt PL. The last thing we should be doing is pandering to he personal ambitions of one politician and instead focus on rallying around that person who was elected to lead the party.
Agreed. The sooner Mario Demarco declares unequivocally he has no intention of challenging Simon Busuttil for leadership, the better for the PN.
Grace has its moments. The inherited duo may in fact, subscribe to the idea that their memorial could be in the way.
When one hears Busuttil was all for the civil unions bill but had to maintain an internal peace, out of his characteristic sense of loyalty, implies anything similar repeating itself will destroy him. If Maltatoday’s graph is anything to go by, which they usually are, Busuttil has the perfect argument why no-one can threaten with resignation anymore. That, if I may, was absolutely not on.
Busuttil has the alibi to take over the party and direct it back to an incorporation of all values out there. Values which haven’t yet been recognised as being in sintony with the PN.
But boy, is there common ground. It is up to Busuttil to stop apologising for the PN. Team PN was the wedge between GonziPN and the future. That future is now.
I won’t refuse his statement were he to declare a break with the past. Nor would Lawrence Gonzi.
His predecessor did the unthinkable, consider this place grown-up. So Malta panicked and preferred informal intimacy.
Lesson learnt, policy being an art. Muscat built himself on a promise he can’t refuse. Busuttil has the freedom to go beyond that and propose back.
It still does not make sense though. I disagree with Dr Busuttil. Yet I voted for those of the PN whom I believe can make a difference.
Political ideology is not abandoned simply because one does not like a leader. By far, the PN candidates could have done a better job than Alfred Sant and the other Labour MPs.
No, the real reason why people tend towards Labour is that they are bewitched by cult leadership and fundamentalism.
Its leader
Joseph Muscat did not win yesterday’s elections – this time, il-Partnership Ma Rebahx.
I know I am taking the risk of sounding as unpopular as Alfred Sant when he said that the ‘partnership’ had won, but the truth of the matter is that Muscat was not a victor in yesterday’s polls.
Muscat earned the vote of about 54% of about 75% of the electorate, which means that only about 40% of the Maltese electorate voted Labour yesterday. According to Muscat, the other 60% (except for the small parties’ vote) voted PN.
For those who are ready to accuse me of doing a Sant: all I am doing here is measuring Muscat’s performance against his own yardstick.
Here:
“The only reason to vote is Simon Busuttil. Do you want to tell Simon Busuttil that he is right? By not voting, you would be conveying the message that Opposition is right, and that even though the PN hurt you in the past, it still supporting warrants your support,” Muscat said.
http://www.maltatoday.com.mt/news/europe_2014/39117/_not_voting_will_only_serve_to_benefit_the_pn__muscat
And as expected, Alfred Sant agrees with Muscat’s yardstick.
“Former prime minister Alfred Sant has warned Labour grassroots from keeping away from the ballot boxes on 25 May, telling voters that abstaining in the European elections “would be tantamount to a vote for the Opposition.” ”
http://www.maltatoday.com.mt/news/europe_2014/39018/sant_tells_voters_abstention_is_pn_vote
It is quite clear that 80,000 votes not cast were not all PN votes.
At the outset, I find it interesting that you should take the trouble pointing out that I am writing under the cloak of anonymity.
Mine was a long-deliberated choice, which I had no qualms sharing with my peers, colleagues and friends. Conversely, I made no attempt to dissuade prospective voters from voting – just abject detachment.
I am not at all surprised at the large number of non-voters. This is after all, a common trend across most Member States beleaguered and disillusioned by the whole EU experience. Of course, Malta being on the fringes of Europe and full on inbred radicals nurturing grudges and blind allegiances to their party bosses, the turnover is higher. Over time, I believe that these MEP elections will yield roughly the same turnout as local elections.
Moving on, I did not vote for two main reasons:
1. As you may have guessed from the aforesaid, I am increasingly disillusioned by the whole EU experiment. Wonderful in principle, endorsed by myself in the referendum etc; but increasingly a bureaucratic behemoth, trying to justify its own existence. The EU Commission is a cesspit of rabid lobbying, to use a kind word (as we have learnt as a national expense), the Council is an obscure in-between chamber, and the EU Parliament, is an over-bloated bureaucratic wet-dream (with 700+ pawns spread us in multi-national coalitions, divided into Pan-European parties), giving 3 minute interventions in ever-deserted chambers, with each glorified pawn having a number of staff in tow – plus the utterly useless translation machine.
This monstrous machine has over time, lost track of its original scope and purpose, over-regulating on utterly useless legislation, such as, to mention just one olive oil packaging, and alienating the populace, in endless squabbling and debates.
So out of this big country club (European Parliament), Malta has been assigned 6 seats (in other words a minority share – based on population demographics) in this over-bearing behemoth. I stand corrected here, but I would really like anyone here to point out one concrete instance, where a Maltese MEP has petitioned anything signficant to conclusion (grave posturing aside – vide MT passport ban / powerstation safety debacles).
2. In a way, and moving on to point two, I can only be glad Malta’s contribution (not representation for reasons discussed above) is confined to just six (6). Over the years, I have endured endless shame, cringing to ‘speeches’ eked out by the likes of Joseph Cuschieri and Claudette Abela Baldacchino – to mention just two.
Barring, a few solid contributors, the other MEPs are just obscure nobodies – who simply have no skills to survive in their local scenario (too many to mention – Ms. Mizzi would probably take the biscuit).
So, this year’s lineup – an array of ex Super One Hacks – Miriam Dalli, Charlon Gouder… Alfred Sant (no comment), Joseph (charity) Cuschieri, a spruce of radicalism (Lowell) and the tragicomic – Zaren ta’ l-Ajkla.
Sorry to say, but I see no talent on the PN side. A view bolstered as I watched Roberta Metsola’s grossly theatrical appearance on ‘Xarabank’ – complete with pre-rehearsed transparent and black slide…. David Casa, clearly fighting for survival to eke a living elsewhere (and surprising, despite years of EP existence – average), washed up has-beens, (FZD), obscure minnows painfully out of their depth (Plumpton / Shaw) and other who may have competence, but are clearly vying for a semi-nursing home, conveniently placed half-way to their European interests (Helga Ellul / Ray Bugeja).
Sorry – but simply put, the field is too poor. I find it actually insulting, but then again, this is a pool of 420,000 people, so it is what it is.
These considerations aside, this election was clearly going to be hijacked by the PL, who has a militant core base, and who will vote irrespective of (case in point Alfred Sant).
Redressing the balance by voting PN’s candidates and in a way giving clout to this result? Sorry – not for this context, and not with this lineup.
I believe that despite the result – the PN is on the right track. And don’t go too deep into it – definitely the whopping majority of non-voters, are PN voters.
[Daphne – Thank you for your detailed reply.]
“inbred radicals nurturing grudges”
Does he mean us?
Detailed, certainly. But, and a big ‘but’, is it balanced and un-biased – or just a ‘detached’ pontification pronounced after the outcome of the election?
My dear friend, may I beg to differ from your assessment of the EU. I don’t know how knowledgeable you are with European history during the last hundred years (at least) – and particularly with the times immediately following the last war.
There are quite a few among us who are adequately familiar with the first and who were already around during the second.
That is why these are best equipped to evaluate the benefits of the EU – notwithstanding any system defects it bears.
You will find that Malta actually has a proportionally larger number of seats assigned to it per capita than any other state.
If seats were assigned in proportion to population Malta would have 0.6 seats – i.e. not even one whole seat.
So Malta can thank its lucky stars.
As for the work of MEPs Busuttil made a massive contribution during his time as did Casa. Look it up.
First of all I thank Jack for giving such a detailed reason as to why he did not vote. Not many bother explaining their reasons.
I will try to tackle all the issues that he raises.
1) Lobbying:
The fact that the European Parliament is crawling with lobbyists is proof that it is a functioning legislative body. If the parliament were only a talking shop with no bite, the lobbyists would go elsewhere.
Jack talks about lobbyists as if they’re evil. They’re not. The people (businesses are also comprised of people) are supposed to lobby their parliamentarians because members of parliament represent them.
Lobbying today has come a long way from individuals writing letters to their members of parliament. Lobbying has become increasingly professional and a business unto itself but this is no bad thing. It’s more organised and therefore more effective.
The reason why Valletta, unlike, say, Washington or Brussels, is not crawling with lobbyists is because in Malta everyone goes directly to the political party headquarters or the ‘uffiċini’ of their representatives. It is easy to go directly to the top and contact the prime minister in an office far from the madding crowd. It is also less transparent.
Give me the professional lobbyists any time. Don’t forget that the snus/John Dalli scandal was uncovered by lobbyists. It was the politician who was in the wrong not the lobbyists.
2) EU legislation
First you say that the EU’s bureaucracy holds it back from legislating and then you say that the EU over-legislates. Make up your mind.
You mention the olive oil rule (which was scrapped before it was even introduced). This is the kind of (admittedly silly sounding) rule which the British tabloids like to highlight.’The EU is going to stop us from eating traditional sausages’, ‘The EU is not going to let us eat curvy bananas.’
The EU has never stopped people from selling or buying traditional or unusual products but it simply says that if they’re going to be sold as being of a certain quality, then they have to meet certain standards. It also says that if products are going to be put on the European market, they have to meet certain standards. Provisions are made for small-time producers and sellers. No one stops Gozitan farmers from making unpasteurised ġbejniet for example but Benna have to be more careful because they have a much larger market. Besides, most of the food stories which you hear are not true. There’s even a name for this genre of tabloid story, Euromyth.
And the olive oil rule is a good one in principle because it goes well with intellectual property rights which the EU always upholds. Spaniards make a big deal out of their olive oil. People pay pricey premiums to consume Spanish olive oil. If you’re going to pay a pricey premium, you don’t want to be served a cheap alternative. Such rules are taken seriously in the wine industry and in non-edible objects like Rolex watches so why not olive oil? It’s an impractical rule because it is hard for restaurants to prove to their customers what oil is being used with their dish but it is a good idea in principle.
Food rules aside, why not talk about banking rules passed earlier this year which make investors more responsible for losses they incur and rules which force countries to build up funds so that the rest of us won’t have to bail them out again if they fail? Why not talk about laws which make companies be more transparent and draw up sustainability plans? Why not talk about laws which make pharmaceutical companies publish their research so that R&D can be facilitated, errors identified and patients can be helped faster? Why not talk about carbon cap and trade schemes which where first introduced in the EU and later copied by several other countries around the world?
3) The EU’s slow-moving bureaucracy
This is indeed cumbersome and frustrating but this is also what democracy is about. Reaching consensus is never easy, especially with 28 countries sitting around the table. The gridlock that often characterises places like Washington and Brussels can drive even the calmest and most level-headed person up the wall but it is the only way to make sure that everyone gets their say. The alternative is efficient but it is crude and much more monstrous. When the Chinese government decides it wants to build a new road, it moves fast and gets the job done but it also literally bulldozes over the houses of people blocking its grand plans. It then sends them to live in some substandard shack, without even compensating them.
4) MEPs from Malta
You argue that Malta doesn’t have enough MEPs and you ask what Maltese MEPs have achieved. You are asking the wrong question. In the Maltese parliament, nobody asks what Gudja MPs or what Mellieħa MPs have achieved. People ask what the Labour Party or what the Nationalist Party has achieved.
Likewise, in the European Parliament, you should ask what the European People’s Party, the Socialists, the Liberals or the Greens have achieved. What MEPs achieve, they do so for Europe and not for any one country so the MEPs’ nationality is irrelevant. David Casa is not one out of 6 Maltese MEPs but one out of 275 members of the European People’s Party.
5) The EU’s bloatedness
This is indeed unfortunate. The EU would work just fine with three or four official languages like the United Nations and it would save a lot of money if it did away with the travelling circus from Brussels to Strasbourg every few months. The thing is, no country wants to give up these privileges or signs of assertiveness.
That looks awful on paper but it is in fact a small price to pay for peace. The EU has been an oasis of peace for more than 50 years, so much so that most Europeans take peace for granted. They shouldn’t. Zoom out of the European Union and look at other regions in the world and you’ll realise that peace always comes at a premium.
Asia is bristling with tension. China and Japan hate each other. Japan and South Korea would gang up on China if only they could get along but there’s trouble there too. The Philippines is also embroiled in disputes with its Asian neighbours, and so on. Meanwhile, ASEAN limps on pretending to unite Asian countries.
Or look at America (the continent). Many countries in Latin America would love nothing more than to see the United States fall flat on its face. Meanwhile, the United States looks at its southern neighbours with great suspicion. And MERCOSUR just looks on when Venezuela throws a fit or Argentina cooks its books.
Look at Africa and the Middle East. Despite the African Union being established in 2001, many of its countries are still engulfed in conflict, corruption and poverty.
Why look at these far off lands when in Eastern Europe we have Russia and Ukraine on the brink of war and in Southern Europe we have the Turkish government shutting off the internet to its citizens?
The European Union is a beacon of light in the middle of so much darkness. Financial woes notwithstanding, I dare to say (political correctness be damned) that the peoples of Europe are still by far the most sophisticated and enlightened in the world. Even the mighty USA still executes its own people and fails to sign certain basic treaties related to human rights.
6) The pool of MEP contenders in Malta
You say that they’re all incompetent but that’s rather unfair.
Francis Zammit Dimech and David Casa are seasoned politicians coming from a successful political party. How does that make them washed-up has-beens?
Helga Ellul and Ray Bugeja have incredible business experience and bank balances to show for it. If they have interests around the continent, isn’t it because they really understand Europe and its free trade policies? Nursing-home? Far from it. Warren Buffett still masterminds his company and tosses newspapers with the best of them at 83. It takes lots of time for age to catch up with a great mind.
And Roberta Metsola and Jonathan Shaw do come across as inexperienced politicians but they do have good ideas and the right kind of CV.
Calling people nobodies without proper justification is neither here nor there. Narendra Modi, the son of a tea-seller, has just become the prime minister of India, the biggest democracy in the world. Nobodies become somebodies. That’s how real meritocracy works.
I see no particular reason why you couldn’t have given your vote to at least some of the very best people on the list. The rest chose your representatives for you. You think you were being very smart by not voting but, frankly, on close reflection, all your arguments have been found seriously wanting.
Alfred Sant has been elected and Helga Ellul hasn’t. Really, really smart, isn’t it?
I was one of those 80,000.
The reasons I abstained now were these.
The PN keeps sitting on the fence or actually agrees with the LP on all this homosexual nonsense and hunting issues.
One expects a European Parliament election campaign to discuss European issues. I am getting hard of hearing and seemed to have missed this. The issues should have been how to deal with hunting, illegal immigration, EU agricultural funding vs other funding, etc.
This election has absolutely nothing to do with who is the sexiest leader and who has the greatest bunga party.
I am also getting sick and tired of reading how our dear parliamentarians seem to either associate themselves with or are convicted criminals themselves. It seems to be an essential part of their CV.
Most politicians seem to be there to improve their own lot and not that of the country. I know a few personally from both sides of the house and they do sometimes let slip their true motivations for entering politics.
Those motivations usually include revenge against some “enemy”, making money and power.
I have yet to meet a politician who truly does it for his country.
People in this country do NOT vote for a party. They vote against a party. That is why LP with its ridiculous policies, priorities and anti EU candidates won. The PN days are still fresh in the memory of the electorate.
Never fear. Once those memories fade and people get sick and tired of this goverment’s meritocracy, the vote will swing again.
The PN’s greatest asset is LP’s shortsighted policy of Malta taghna u tal-qalba biss. The sad thing is that once elected the PN will probably start using the same tactics.
Corruption is one of the key issues that can actually swing votes. Unfortunately our parties fail to recognise this and just play lip service to this all important issues.
Only education of the electorate can improve the politics of this country and apparently this does not seem to be in the best interest of our politicians.
Maybe the only glimmer of hope in this election is the fact that 1 in 4 of the electorate believe our politicians do not deserve our vote.
The abstainers come in here and tell us how awful Labour are. Yet they still can’t be bothered to go out and vote for the Nationalist Party.
Unbelievable.
I am one of the people who did not vote. I had a genuine problem when PN were in government and they did not help, instead they helped Labourites, so today I did not vote.
Sounds like you represent the average mindset of the clientilist voter not dissimilar to the Sicilian going to his padrone for a favour. You, and people like you, are what is wrong with Malta.
That is why the PN cannot win – they are too transparent and fair to win in a Mafia-style political system of returned favours.
This is definetly not the case. I do not want to harm the PN so I won’t get into details, but I couldn’t believe the answer I got. And what I needed had nothing to do with placements, or any other type of favouritism. I needed help for a genuine problem my special needs kid was facing.
I dunno albona, l-isbah wiehed mentions a genuine problem, sincere enough to come here and talk.
As for the Sicilian, frankly speaking, I’m starting to get a tad tired of condemning outright this way of doing things. If we have to go beyond it, at least we could consider it a natural state.
And by that I do not condemn or impose it.
I was under the impression politics was also about people and not some abstract set of rules which inscindible nature leaves the space to those who will make use of clientelism to keep us back.
Renzi won back Sicily from the Cinque Stelle yesterday. Now if we want to label him a socialist and the Cinque Stelle a bunch of loonies, please bear in mind corrupt practices were augmented by Berlusconi’s supposed liberal right.
Grillo’s success in Sicily had been about getting rid of any collusion between a political class riddled with the behaviour you mention and a criminal underworld.
I voted, every time, but I can assure you, there were times when my rights were considered as some concession by a bureacratic machine which had been left to fester.
Some archaic, feudal laws, which should have been tackled aeons ago weren’t ever recognised as being the poison trickling into the social pact established in 1987.
The result was a bunch of authorities left to ‘interpret’ fundamental rights foremost amongst these, one’s property,
Whether that was part of Labour’s plan remains to be seen. All I can say is that the PN administration seemed unwilling to take stake of such a possibility.
What matters at this stage is the radical rethinking of how government works. That lessons be learnt. Going by Muscat’s mentality, he has no intention of changing or trim any of that monstrosity, just use it to keep his clutches on our lives.
L-isbah wiehed, I apologise if I misunderstood you.
Jozef, clientelism does not work because it pits people against each other in a tribalist war.
What happens if I have the construction of a room on my roof approved by my minister (padrone) at your detriment as it now obstructs your view of the sea? You have no say as your representative (padrone) is not in power.
Seems that you belong with Labour with that kind of thinking.
I also was temped to not vote, but did , but I could not reconcile myself to vote for Simon’s PN,and I will regret it.
The PN has lost its way, and has become an insipid version of what it was even 5 years ago. We tried to reform it, but the lawyers and the vested interests inside wouldn’t even let us get into the door.
I also cannot stomach the fact that Simon Busuttil fence sits, especially on the hunting issue. I am sure that if he didn’t do this, the result would have been better.
I don’t respect or like weakness in leaders. Busuttil is weak, Beppe Fenech Adami is very lazy, and Mario Demarco is a schemer who I will not like to see as leader. He did a lot of harm in the previous government, and Gonzi here was at fault for trusting him with MEPA.
I am one of those 80K too!