And as expected, Labour has pulled the vast majority of votes
Labour has pulled in 53% of the vote, as indicated by the polls over the last few weeks.
The gap between the Labour Party and the Nationalist Party is, once again, 36,000 votes despite a much lower turn-out than in the general election last year.
Between them, AD and the fringe parties have amassed a considerable number of votes, and the haemorrhage towards them appears to have come directly from the PN voter base.
Around a quarter of the electorate simply decided to stay home. There is no way of knowing at this early stage what proportions of those came from the Labour/PN voter base.
It is interesting that despite this affecting factor, the PN-LP gap remains the same.
The prime minister has said “It’s humbling.” What that means, of course, is the diametric opposite: a licence for more overweening pride and arrogance.
It was obvious this was going to happen: that’s why Muscat was so self-confident and turned this into a straight contest between himself and the Opposition leader.
Over the past few days, there was talk of Labour winning by a margin of 24,000 votes. That talk came from Labour. This should have been interpreted for what it was: that the polls were showing a much higher majority for Labour, but they wanted to trim expectations in anticipation of a much higher victory.
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And it means Simon Busuttil must be kicked out. As quickly as possible.
As if.That was the argument put about when Gonzi still led the PN. Having a more marketable leader means installing a Muscat clone who promises the moon and delivers peanuts. One is bad enough.
Malta is still in the honeymoon period. Give it a couple of years when the bubble bursts, then people will see (maybe…ghax il-Gahan taqlghalu ghajnejh…).
il problema hi li ma fadalx gahan
spicca iz zmien li fil manifest twieghed kollox
u imbaghad anqas taghamel nil kwart f hames snin
il pn kien jirbah l elezzjionijet mhux fuq ghemilu , imma billi
ibezza in nies bil babaw jekk jitla il labour din il buzzieqa issa
mifquha darba ghal dejjem u lestu ghal 40,000 l elezzjioni
ta erba snin ohra
Utterly speechless. People seem to be sadistically enjoying all the arrogance from Taghna Lkoll. A clear go ahead for more tyranny unfortunately.
Just hear Toni Abela on TVM. “Il-poplu tkellem. Halluhom ha jahdmu.”
I don’t want to hear about ‘nitghallmu mill-izbalji’. The truth is that we are a mediocre nation and the majority of people just want to have everything for free u ‘li jinqdew’.
It has got nothing, or only a little, to do with what is today the PN.
still I can’t understand, unbelievable of a country!
Yet he continued to insist Labour was the underdog. The barefaced cheek
The PN must take stock of the situation. Simon Busuttil was telling people to show the yellow card to the Prime Minister. The people instead showed Busuttil the red card. He is not fit for the role. There is a leader within the Nationalist Party and his name is Mario de Marco.
I have completely lost faith in Maltese voters, I cannot believe so many voted PL after this last year’s performance.
why are u so surprised, the people do and will not forget the arrogance of pn administrations.
this is what nivvota bil qalb biex jgholow il kontijet brings
wake up and get it into your thick heads that your time is finished and over and done with hbieb tal hbieb will be no more
I really don’t understand though. In the last 14 months we had one gaffe after another.. did 53% of the population miss these repeated event or are they happy about them?
what gaffes?
bringing millions into enemalta
less expensive energy bills
better rating from all financial experts?
where are you living? on the moon perhaps?
are you one who has lost a cushy position that was being paid by us taxpayers?
They never read Daphne`s posts and they tune their TV and radio sets on to Super One which never tells them about the gaffes, the fibs, the twists and U turns.
Sincerament nahseb wasal iz-zmien li nhalli din l-art ghax in-naqra tama’ li kelli f’niesha spiccat ghal kollox.
Tabillhaqq dhalna go hajt u mhux ghax dahhalna Muscat, imma ghax hekk iridu in-nies.
People love all the freebies coming out from the government. The big question is if it’s sustainable.
[Daphne – I must have missed them. What freebies, exactly?]
The 10th district registers an unprecedented dip in turnout, 67%.
Ditto the North.
There’s your proportion.
Xi dwejjaq ta’ pajjiz u xi dwejjaq ta’ nies. Nitlaq minn hawn mhix soluzzjoni ghax kullimkien infiltraw.
itlaq u aghmel il wisa ghal haddiehor
ghalli jista 9ikun kont tahdem ma xi ministru u tppaoija min fuqna???
To me what is most disturbing is that Alfred Sant gets 53k+ votes. Will he be showing the referendum vote he never used 10 years ago when he turns up at the European Parliament or ask where he can defrost Malta’s application? I give up :(
Hopefully the PN will manage to get something out of this disastrous (once again) result.
Told you. This whole attitude from the PN side has to go and your negative comments included. Simon’s mantra that by repeating enough is going to sink is wrong. You can go about saying that all those who vote labour are ignorant and stupid but you have to be ignorant yourself to believe that is true. I know you are not an ignorant person. Far from it, you are a highly intelligent one.
So while we all know Muscat is the wrong man for leadership the PN’s inability to clean up its old guard is giving him strength while the fool’s ego keeps being pumped higher by his court jesters. At the same time even if Simon can improve on his somewhat diminutive stature hes saddled with too big a baggage over which hes having to expend too much energy. Two vice leaders? Is that not stupid?
In short … tonio fench, pulicino, beppe, gonzi … they need to disappear.
You cannot keep going about calling labour pigs at the trough while conveniently forgetting the biggest guzzlers like gege gatt, polidano brothers, vassallo builders and alert communications just to name a few is never going to cut it.
[Daphne – You criticise me for saying that (most of) those who vote Labour are stupid and ignorant, and then go on to prove it. Gonzi needs to disappear? He did so a year ago. Polidano Brothers at the PN trough? They did a multi-million-euro land deal with Dom Mintoff’s daughters and are backing Labour. Gege Gatt of Icon Studios a guzzler? Most of the big tenders for web portal projects under his father Austin’s aegis went to Labour voter Claudine Cassar of Alert Communications, who campaigned for Muscat in the last election.]
A need to clean up the old guard, eh? I imagine that’s why Muscat’s installed all of Labour’s old guard in key positions.
If truth be told, the PN’s disadvantage is that it is held to higher standards than the PL which delivers handouts and horror in equal measure, keeping themselves on an even keel.
Well, quite a few people have a strong impression that Austin Gatt ‘helped’ a few people get seriously wealthy. And that Icon got quite a few contracts from the government especially when it was starting out – which is always the most difficult time in a business. I wouldn’t put my head on a block for Austin Gatt.
Having said that, why haven’t this lot gone after him?
As for the biggest guzzlers those have to be the Gasans and their mates – no flights on private jets this time (that was rather silly of Tonio Fenech) but lots of cozy dinners and what not going on there.
see? this is where you and like minded Maltesers get their circuits to no compute. you still cannot fathom that we re not living the 80s anymore. There are individuals on this tiny insignificant rock that do not really care who governs as long as they do not really cock it up. Clearly this lot must feel that the PN in its present state would do a worse job especially me thinks with the country’s very limited finances.
As for Polidano as an example …. how did this bennej come about so many millions in the first place?
lets just cut to the real problem here. Muscat has clearly harnessed PNs major sector that won it elections in the past and that’s the business sector with the building industry being his main ally.
Heq, in-Nazzjonalisti qatt ma bezghu ghan-nies taghhom, anzi dejjem tawhom bis-sieq. Saqsi lil imgarrab.
Muscat: “The government, he said would remain with its feet on the ground.”
Where have we heard that before?
Poplu masocista.
poplu li taghallem habib
tghallem jaghraf il paroli mis sustanza
There’s only one explanation:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_and_circuses
WHAT is going to make the PN and SWITCHERS vote for PN again I wonder?
Indeed, and the Ntionalist Party needs to get the message. Words get us and you nowhere!
Useless telling us civil servants that the PN is our ‘Tarka’! What has the PN done for us who have been transferred, who have been dumped in offices doing nothing, who have been humiliated? PQs get you nowhere .
The leadership needs to read into this message.
Grazzi lill-Partit Nazzjonalista tal-attakk kontinwu fuqi. Illum hadtu r-risposta. – Cyrus Engerer
According to Cyrus Engerer the election result absolves his heinous deed, his crime and his 2 year prison sentence suspended for 2 years.
What a corrupt way of thinking.
Grazzi lill-Partit Laburista li tqannejtu bieh.
A picture that says it all
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20140525/local/at-the-counting-hall-party-activists-while-away-the-time-tongue-in-cheek.520463
Well done Labour!!! The people have spoken!!! :)
There is only one way of interpreting this result. Simon Busuttil is clearly a PN liability. He just doesn’t cut it.
[Daphne – Kevin, is it because Eddie Fenech Adami was a liability for the PN that you didn’t vote PN under his leadership? Is it because Sant was a liability for Labour that you voted Labour under his leadership? And probably even under KMB’s leadership, too? I ask because I am genuinely curious as to the basis of your political opinions.]
Kevin Ellul Bonnici believes he’s an independent and rational thinker with great powers of analysis, superior knowledge and access to a universe of information denied to lesser mortals.
In reality he’s a Mintoffian and eurosceptic poseur who lives directly off the existence of the institutions he derides.
Well, I do have the dubious honour of having voted for Peppi tax-Xarabank in 1992, so I guess that does make my opinion irrelevant.
Still, do you honestly think that Simon Busuttil is PN’s best bet? Fair question.
[Daphne – Of course he’s the best bet. He’s the best of what’s available. That’s what a best bet is. When choices are made, you compare between the various options available to you, and not with something that is not available but that would be preferable to you or a better solution. As I said, the only sure bet to decimate Muscat personally and politically would be a man who makes him feel both instantly inferior and admiring at a physical impact/charisma level. But given that exactly this sort of man is available nowhere in the Maltese political spectrum, Simon Busuttil is the best bet of the options available in the Nationalist Party – just as Joseph Muscat was the best bet for Labour in 2008, as it turned out, even though on the face of it George Abela was the ‘obvious’ option.]
What about a woman? I don’t think Muscat is able to handle women either. Having said that I doubt the Maltese electorate are prepared for a woman leader yet.
Joseph Muscat has been Labour Leader for six years and there wasn’t as much as a whimper in his first two years or so. The problems within the PN allowed him the breathing space to germinate.
Eddie Fenech Adami took a few years to find his feet but when he did he bowled all before him and that included three MLP leaders.
Mintoff used to call Fenech Adami ‘Vavu’. L-Orizzont, It-Torca and the Labour Party newspaper used to depict him in cartoons as a caricature wearing a nappy with a large safety-pin. Joseph Muscat is making the same mistake and is trying to belittle Simon Busuttil. He too will live to regret it.
Looking back, one must realise that JPO and Franco Debono were just the tip of the iceberg. Mismanagement flourished within the PN as did reckless and seriously doubtful spending in the last years.
Lawrence Gonzi should have immediately put a stop to all the nonsense and called an early election, terminating underhand sabotage tactics from individuals who were eyeing the leadership and relishing the difficult moments the PN was going through.
By not going to ballot Lawrence Gonzi pressed the ‘self-destruct’ button on himself and the Nationalist Party and allowed his ‘unknown’ antagonist to survive another round.
It took five years to come to this. It is therefore quite reasonable to expect a little time for the PN to be rebuilt even with the best person at the helm.
It is extremely painful to see Labour supporters celebrating, the same supporters who voted against EU membership in the first place and who would have denied me the blessing of being a European citizen.
I am one of those people who truly benefitted from being part of the EU and my life would be completely different now if those people celebrating today got it their way 10 years ago. So, so gutted.
We’re living in a dictatorship controlled by ignorant people. It is such a shame that a country full of potential like ours has to have such a terrible political system. My only wish is that it will get better in a few years.
Outstanding result! Proud to have elected this Government.. Well done!!
And PN getting 40% versus 43% in the 2013 general election. Ahem.
[Daphne – I apologise for repeating myself, but you can’t compare an EP election with a general election. In the EP election of 2004, Labour under Sant got 48% of the vote and the PN under its brand-new leader Lawrence Gonzi got 40%. Four years later, Sant lost the general election – by a marginal number of votes, yes, but on the 40%/48% basis, you’d have expected him to have won it. The thing is, people feel safe making ‘different’ choices when they are not choosing the government. Also, lots of people who returned to Malta to vote last year did not do so this year and instead voted in Britain, France, Germany, the Netherlands or wherever they happen to be living. People are way more relaxed about EP elections. Nobody can accuse me of being politically disengaged or not having firm political views, for instance, but in 20 years or so, the only time I ever voted in a local council election was when it happened to coincide with another election and I was in the polling booth anyway. I have absolutely no interest in local council politics.]
The UK has UKIP and we have PL.
Please don’t vanish for days on end until things settle down a little bit.
Your readers are going to need to come here to wrap their heads around what is happening to our country.
You could have written Muscat’s speech for him. He said exactly what you said he’d say. Even though I expected the false humility, I nearly choked at the bit were he said They ” will continue with humility”. If this is how he is going to continue, it’s going to be a long 4 years.
Simon Busutill should call it a day.
Yes right. So we can have Mario de Marco as prime minister in 2018? Are you out of your mind or are you just Labour?
Being out of one’s mind and voting Labour are mutually inclusive.
I have had enough of hearing it is all Simon Busutill’s fault!
Why? Who hijacked this MEP election for his own twisted agenda? Like Daphne said previously, he knew exactly how things were going to turn out and used it, like always, to manipulate his naghag ta’ Bendu followers and impressionable ‘Nationalists’.
This is what Muscat wants ..to break up the Nationalist Party so that he can drive the final nail in the coffin of democracy. People who think like you do are playing his game.
When one is brought up in the environment I was unfortunate enough to experience, the intentions and thinking of the Labour Party are crystal clear. It thrives on populism and hand-outs and favours so much so that a member of my family accused me of siding with the PN because I had been given favours by them in past years.
My immediate family and I are not even remotely connected to politics in any way, but this is a clear indication of how the average Labour supporter thinks, and this particular person is supposedly educated.
The Nationalist Party should stop trying to please everyone at the cost of losing its core principles. It will only end up coming across as pathetic.
I admire Eddie Fenech Adami and Lawrence Gonzi for holding fast their beliefs and principles at the cost of losing the popular vote. Simon Busuttil has big shoes to fill, but can we say the same of Muscat? He replaced an incompetent politician and lately had the huge financial boost from the real people who run Malta, who unscrupulously jump ship when it suits them and whose only interest is their self-promotion and their money which played a huge part in the Labour Party’s victory.
I cannot help but think of the analogy of the Scottish party for Independence, whose campaign was funded generously by a donations amounting to 60 million sterling by an English couple who won 165 million in the euro millions lottery (again..the irony) and who stood no chance of causing as much as a ripple for their cause had it not been for this windfall.
The Nationalist Party had the guts to stick to what it really believed in, and paid a very high price for these decisions – but I still believe that, given time and support, we will still have a leader who will be the very antitheses of all that is Malta right now. I, for one, prefer it this way, so good luck, Simon Busuttil.
People forget that Muscat’s speciality – indeed, his only skill – is news media manipulation. This is the man who set up Maltastar and who campaigned against EU membership to curry favour with his then master who is now his slave.
ia am labour
pls pls pls keep simon
Shocking….how could anyone vote for the same ex-PM who wanted Malta out of the EU and who opted for an imaginary partnership where to add insult to injury also said that partnership won.
And I’m told he is leading, way ahead of all the other candidates of both parties.
Today I realise that with such an electorate Malta was lucky to have joined the EU at all. Where are the bright people? Either we don’t have any or they are busy taking selfies and modelling on Facebook.
ia am labour
pls pls pls keep simon
by the way pls wake up, a third of the euro parliament will be made up up anti euros. that is the way forward
to fight from within
I think the message to the PN is loud and clear: you are doing something wrong. If it sticks to what it is doing, Labour will win the next election by a larger majority.
The electorate showed that the argument about lack of meritocracy is not important for it – this may be right, or wrong, but it is evident that it is not getting the PN anywhere.
The PN needs to be humble enough to realise that it needs to change, to be able to reduce labour’a majority significantly in the next election, and be competitive in the next one.
It hurts to say it but the Nationalist Party has lost all hope of regaining or winning any contest with the Labour Party since the last MEP election in 2009.
To make matters worse the PN made a disasterous campaign during the divorce referendum. From then on nothing could stop the swing towards Labour.
PN needs to project itself as a party attuned to people’s wishes and needs through changes in more than one sector – a clear-cut off from pre-2013 PN; change in its leadership (including deputy leaders); the PN newsroom is riddled with unsuitable persons with very poor voice projection, using the same old cliches.
But above all PN needs to revisit its ideology to make it more valid in today’s fast changing social scenario.
It is about time that the PN changed its values in order to conform itself with those of the people. The PL has done that some time ago and is miles ahead of the PN.
Do you mean the PN should represent anything and anyone like the PL just to win an election as soon as possible ?
This is what being non-confrontational gets you. It is not sufficient to appeal to the electorate’s intelligence but to get their vote, what you really need is to win hearts.
Any of the two political parties’ grassroots want and thrive on confrontation – it is in our blood.
To a vast majority, this is the only way by which the parties can be seen as getting things done.
The electorate will rally behind the leader who takes to the streets and speaks to the masses in their own language. Until the PN understand this, they can prepare themselves for similar results for the next ten years.
The writing was already on the wall in 2004 and the PN ignored it to its own detriment in all subsequent European and national elections.
Today, there is yet another message written clearly on the same wall. Will the PN manage to read it, and if they do, will they be able to respond adequately?
All the odds were stacked against the PN, so I don’t think it’s fair to blame the party leader for this electoral defeat, as some Nationalists are doing at the moment.
For starters, our electoral campaign paled in comparison to Labour’s three million euro spending spree. There was not a single billboard from the PN, but on the other hand, the country has been inundated with Pyongyang-esque propaganda all year round. The reason is simple, we lacked the seemingly endless supply of funds that the latter party seems to have access to. As the Maltese saying goes, “l-għajjat nofs il-bejgħ”. Doubly so in Malta’s case I suppose, where flash is often all people care about, rather than substance.
Secondly, the LP strategically deployed a number of its electoral promises shortly before the election, to take people’s minds off all their recent blunders. Your typically Maltese won’t give a twopenny about the economy or the big picture issues as long as he receives his VAT refund, a marginally cheaper electricity bill and a fabulous 2ċ roħs fuq il-fjuwil.
The PN’s biggest mistake, in my humble opinion, is over-estimating the intelligence of the Maltese electorate. Muscat is all too aware of this fact; that’s why he exploits it to high heaven to score massive electoral victories.
No, Muscat gathers the data available to him.
‘For starters, our electoral campaign paled in comparison to Labour’s three million euro spending spree. There was not a single billboard from the PN, but on the other hand, the country has been inundated with Pyongyang-esque propaganda all year round. The reason is simple, we lacked the seemingly endless supply of funds that the latter party seems to have access to. As the Maltese saying goes, “l-għajjat nofs il-bejgħ”.’
Notwithstanding all that, the PN has marginally closed the gap.
When one considers the last minute votes Labour managed to acquire with pre-election promises, the thousand jobs recently dished out and the votes forced from old people’s homes, the cheques arriving by post and the promises of lower tariffs and rise in pay, it is quite an achievement that the gap closed at all.
The bottom line is that the PN has managed to force Labour to distribute its bounty now with little new to give come the general elections.
My thoughts exactly. The Labour party seems to have exhausted its stock of little sweeties.
Word on the street had it that they were in for a heavy loss, but starting making frantic calls shortly before the polling stations closed. They managed to sweet-talk a good number of disgruntled Labourites into voting, with God knows what promises of jobs, property and what have you.
Their lust for power will cost the country dearly in the long run, and when public funds for iced buns dry up and the economy slows to a crawl, people will come crying back to the PN.
I hate to say this, but after the lambasting you gave me, I am right and you are wrong.
The PN needs to change its leader, and grovel at the feet of those it has wronged badly because it was sure of their vote.
Only then can it move on.
[Daphne – I haven’t put myself up for election, Phoenix, and do not change my mind according to the majority vote. A majority vote does not make wrong right. How has the PN wronged people badly? It has changed Malta immeasurably and incomparably for the better and ensured that we have EU passports. It is Labour that has wronged Malta badly. But because people like you lack the intelligence to see further than your noses, you quantify being wronged at the micro, petty level and can’t see or measure the big picture, the common good, or your place in it.
The way you live now is thanks to PN policies, not thanks to Labour policies. Yet there you go, dissing the political party that introduced you to normal, democratic life and civilization while acting to favour the very man – not just party – who wronged you badly by working his arse off to keep Malta out of the European Union.
I’m sorry to have to say this, but the fundamental problem in Malta is not the political parties because there are bad and good political parties everywhere. The real problem is dysfunctional or restricted powers of analysis that are not the result of a genetically low IQ, as some people claim, but more properly attributed to a socio-educational system that acts to quell or silence the enquiring mind, starting in infancy. People in Malta take catastrophically bad decisions not just in politics but in many other areas of their life.
They simply cannot see things for what they are, or assemble various bits of information and analyse them coherently. This is not even related to natural intelligence, but to a tragic inability to assess goals and keep your eyes on the ball. What is the priority here: punishing the Nationalist Party or getting a good government for Malta? Only somebody with severely impaired judgement, the result of poor analytical skills, would focus on the former.
Also, the last time I ‘lambasted’ you, as I recall, it was because of your patronizing attitude towards women and, in particular, your wife and her role in the home. I am afraid that this is all of a piece.]
People vote on today, not on ten years ago. The inability to think objectively in this site departs from the fact that the PN should always be in government, mainly but not only, because it got us in the EU. Or that an EU passport was an issue of life and death, without realising that the attitude towards the EU, community wide, have changed. The English vote Nigel Farage, and you wonder why the Maltese vote Sant.
Face it, the electorate have the perception that the PL is doing a good job, because probably they feel it in their pockets. And this is the same the world over, there is no big or small picture here. If Joseph’s energy policy serves him right and gives him reason, then it faults Dr. Gonzi for not doing the same out of ideology slavery, or having an issue of doing business with China. Yesterday’s Atletico had Azerbaijan on their shirt. It gives them money.The same can be said for Germany’s energy relations with Russia, and its reluctance to severe them, irrespective of what Russia is doing in Ukraine. Granted that people in a higher income bracket may have differing voting priorities.
But the fact remains that the extent of this defeat belie any other analysis outcome other than that there is perception that the government so far is doing well. This has nothing to do with education, or the size of Muscat’s tummy or his lack of eloquence, or the dress of Ms Muscat.
Spot on, Daphne. The people are the intrinsic problem. Labour folk are incapable of seriously analyzing their own party while the Nationalist Party is constantly under scrutiny by its own kind.
The people have spoken.
According to Dr. Simon Busutill, one year was not enough to get the party back on its feet.
Wrong.
It will take as long as it takes to get rid of some of the old faces, faces who most of us don’t, and will never trust.
Dr. Simon, start by first and foremost cleaning your stables, then and only then will the party start witnessing the comeback of the true Nats.
[Daphne – Wrong end of the stick, Mr Loporto. The ‘true Nats’ are the only ones still voting for the Nationalist Party. All the others are now voting Labour, like you, for the fringe parties, or staying home. Politics is not an ethnicity or a club membership, but belief in a set of policies and principles. Clearly, you no longer believe in PN policies or share its fundamental principles and attitudes, and that is why you are now voting Labour.]
I agree with you Daphne, but Mr Loporto is right in that there needs to be some ‘clean up of the stables’.
I never understand this reference to “those who were wronged” by the PN.
Who are they, exactly? Those who wanted a MEPA permit but didn’t get it, perhaps?
Or those who wanted a government job but weren’t given one?
Or even wanted something as trivial as a transfer? Or maybe they were denied a promotion they thought they merited?
[Daphne – I understand the spirit of your comment fully. I have just heard Manuel Micallef say on the Labour Party’s television station that he had received a comment from a Labour supporter who said that he didn’t vote Labour this time because the government has not ‘fixed’ all his ‘suffering’ ‘li tant sofra taht il-gvern l-iehor’. And I thought what a shame it is that some people don’t get to experience what real suffering is all about.]
Those who FELT wronged by the PN. There is no such thing as being wronged by a political party that promotes and safeguards democracy and freedom when in government and in parliament.
People forget that voting is ultimately for themselves, and not for the people they elect. We get the government and representatives that the slackers deserve.
No Antoine, it’s when your own party tries its best to ruin you financially, and putting you through hell, by denying what’s yours by right, by right, so that it panders to the needs of someone it owes massive sums to.
It’s when a party is so sure of your vote that they won’t give you what’s yours because the next-door Nationalist has a stronger parrinu.
Party or government, Phoenix? If the PN owes you, sue. If you feel the PN government owed you a favour, that’s another story.
I am so deeply disturbed by this term “people wronged by the PN”. It is so false.
I am simply shocked!
I cannot figure out how despite all the Labour shortcomings since the general elections they kept the same majority.
Poplu mbruljun!
Labour shortcomings, apparently, were compensated by other things. It cannot be otherwise.
Poplu injorant u haqqu dan l-imbarazz ta’ gvern. In-nejka li jien tqannajt bih ukoll.
Inzommu f’rasna illi anke fl-1987 wara dawk l-abbuzi kollha minn Mintoff, KMB u ohrajn xorta il-PN rebah b’maggoranza baxxa. Hawn wisq minnha jhobbu jissawtu.
Perhaps no surprises as the poltical leader’s success hinges on those with lower social ranks.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-05-23/daniel-hannan-explains-why-socialism-does-not-work
No Daphne, a huge defeat was not expected. Chris Said appeared under shock and Simon Busuttil is nowhere to be see.
[Daphne – I’m talking about myself. Polls regardless (and the polls were showing a huge majority for Labour), I knew for certain that Labour was set to win a vast majority the minute Muscat announced that this was going to be a straight contest between him and Busuttil. The only reason he would have said that is because he was sure of the outcome. He wasn’t going to take a risk.]
Nobody expected Labour to retain such a majority. History teaches us that leaders provoke some of their biggest swings in their first year of leadership. Simon Busuttil failed miserably. He is completely detached from the average Joe, fails to connect and comes across as incoherent.
[Daphne – We are all responsible for our own choices and our own vote. Nobody forces us to vote the way we do. The person who votes for Charlon Gouder instead of for Helga Ellul, or who doesn’t vote because he doesn’t care whether a seat in the European Parliament is occupied by Charlon Gouder rather than Helga Ellul, has made his own choice and can blame or attribute that choice to neither Joseph Muscat nor Simon Busuttil. We have the vote because we are over 18 and adults.]
I can’t fully agree with that statement. If party leaders can’t influence the way the electorate votes, then why campaign at all?
You can influence the way people vote but the choice is, ultimately, theirs.
What I didn’t expect was a seeming increased loss in the number of votes by the Nationalists. More people losing reason?
While it is wrong not to vote, egoism has taken the upper hand in some of the voters’ minds. They are punishing the Nationalists in a way they think best. Finally those who did not vote have only given the chance and an opportunity for labour to be more arrogant and autocratic.
Not surprised! The PN should wake up.
Wake up? What do you suggest? That the PN acts like Labour, without any principles as long as we rake in the money and give everybody all that they ask for?
If you were to tell me that the PN should be a little more aggressive and keep on repeating things ad nauseum, I may agree although that would make life boring.
Please explain yourself in more detail. it is easy to keep on repeating platitudes and generalisations.
Malta should wake up. It’s in deep sleep.
X’poplu imnejjek ghandna.
Amen
very sad truth, we expected sunshine too soon just after a year and 2 months.
Poplu li jhobb jissawwat. L-importanti li rahas il-fuel b’ 2c
Indeed!
That Labour managed to garner landslides in the last three nationwide elections says a lot about the electorate more than it does about the political parties.
This especially when one considers that the Nationalists ousted Labour in 1987 by a few thousand votes after seventeen years of violence, scandal, corruption, privation, human rights violations and misery.
The substantial progress made under subsequent Nationalist governments count for nothing to many, most of all to the switchers, many of them harbouring a private agenda which is topmost in their minds.
A year of unprecedented arrogance from a bloated government has left no negative impression on this lot and they are happy to encourage more of the same.
So if in the past I had some reservations about the way you went about savaging these insufferable people, now I can see that you were right all the way. They are just not worth treating with kid gloves.
Mintoff was originally elected by a marginal handful of votes.
I’m afraid that the PN’s new leadership has not even made a dent on the electorate. Anyway I immediately thought that the parting shot “never give up” indicated that the PN had in fact given up already.
Time to re-think everything.
Disagree – the fact that PN retained the same 40% is good. The fact that PL has lost 2% is an indicator too, not a good one after one year in government especially with all the handouts it has given.
It may indicate that the switchers/PL are wavering. They aren’t the type to show this by giving their vote to PN yet, but are showing their hesitance in voting PL.
I would not have been too happy if PN did well as it is too early in the game.
This result in PL’s mind at the moment is an outright victory, so the arrogance is going to be stronger.
Remember for every person (PN) hit, there is a PL fallout. What PN need to do is employ a stronger strategy.
Can’t agree more. Wrong choices by the PN administration over and over again. Simon Busuttil’s chance was prior to the general election and not after.
He is part of the election failure. At this point, the more he stays, the more the years in Opposition for the PN. Will they ever learn? I doubt it.
A 2008 victory by 1500 votes wasn’t a lesson enough.
The EP 2009 landslide victory by Labour wasn’t enough.
They will listen to the message, they said. Listen to whom? To the few who have been hi-jacking the party for years.
The PN needs a clean sweep and to start from scratch. New leader now, and new faces.
The oresent faces will never earn the trust of the voters.
They will only realise when it will be too late and many elections lost and wasted years.
[Daphne – I disagree with you completely. Again, and I don’t mean to be offensive but am merely stating facts: poor powers of analysis. When you analyse the performance and function of a political party, you can’t do so in a vacuum or on the basis of theoretical economic premiss of all things being equal. The Labour Party won its landslide victory in 2013 with a shipload of ageing fossils from the Mintoffian/KMB era. Those ‘new faces’ are now in key positions: special envoy to the World Tourism Organisation, permanent representative to the World Trade Organisation, EU Commissioner-designate, head of state. Other old faces from Sant’s 1996 cabinet are safely installed in this one. The finance minister is the man who appeared on Xandir Malta in the 1970s and 1980s to report on election results. The deputy prime minister was one of Mintoff’s men in Air Malta right at the start in the early 1970s. So no, it isn’t about new faces but about new packaging and new attitudes.]
But you still haven’t given us your assessment of Simon Busuttil’s aptitude, Daphne. You do have an opinion, so let’s have it.
[Daphne – I think he needs to decide exactly who he is speaking to. It is the basis of all audience-/market-building. Speaking in general terms or failing to address your audience specifically gets you nowhere. Over the last four years, the Labour Party segmented its market into different audiences and spoke to systematically address each one, prioritising them according to ‘target softness’ and not wasting time on impossible targets.
Knowing who you are speaking to, and who you should be speaking to, is crucial. This is often confused with making sure that people know what you stand for. They are not the same thing. The first is crucial and the second is not. When you get the first right, the second follows naturally. Joseph Muscat knows this. Simon Busuttil doesn’t understand it yet, but he will. There is now a great mass of electors who are not catered for by either party, including many thousands who are galvanized by environmental issues either because they really believe in them or because they identify with that what they represent image-wise. The relative ease with which the coalition for a referendum to abolish spring hunting collected signatures equivalent to 10% of the electorate is a major clue to the direction the PN needs to take and where its audience lies now.]
Asking for the removal of Simon Busuttil is the equivalent, in sporting terms, of asking for the removal of a football club’s manager, coach, captain and senior players because of a defeat, more so if that defeat was expected and even predicted. It is a clear sign of panic.
Spot on Daphne.
The PN cannot spend six weeks going on about out of stock medicines.
It’s gone ‘grassroots’ when that was something else.
Why should I be offended? It’s your opinion which I respect. What you say is true, but the choice of frontman, the leader, the face of the party is crucial. People were ready to die, literally, for Eddie Fenech Adami.
The most ideal candidates to replace Simon Busuttil are both women, Ann Fenech and Roberta Metsola. That will be the first step forward. I can’t see anyone else.
Gaining a vast majority is just going to give the PM more of an excuse to bulldoze over everyone even more.
He’s already caused irreversible damage, what’s coming now, in the next three years is what’s going to sting most, and will affect everyone.
Some people don’t like Simon Busuttil because he is a well-mannered and composed gentleman, and doesn’t employ Muscat’s pig-headed rhetorical style that seems to appeal the mob that follow him.
When the next election comes round, I’m guessing (or at least hoping), that most people will be better equipped to tell the difference between a statesman, and a glorified telemarketer, and will then be more inclined to vote for the gentleman.
Metsola? You are joking. She is young and inexperienced, and a tat arrogant. And an EU woman. You still have not grasped the present Maltese psyche do you? However much you do not want recognise or notice. Maltese have turned Eurosceptic. This does not mean that they want out, but that they do not want Europhiles neither. The abymissal failure of Dr. Busuttil and the rise of Dr. Sant must also be seen in this light. Besides Dr. Busuttil is associated with burden sharing failure, though no fault of his it must be said.
If Dr. Busuttil wants good to the party, it’s true, he must leave his place to another seasoned, no EP tainted, politician. Ann Fenech perhaps, but the Maltese electorate is somewhat chauvinist, so this choice may not be very strategic. Dr. De Marco may do a good job.
And Dr. Busuttil was caught pants down on the direct order thing during Xarabank. Dr. Muscat’s astuteness at its best.
PN needs a leader with no baggages, but no young neither.
Muscat is anything but astute. He’s cocky and arrogant, yes, but not astute.
He is not as intelligent as he likes to believe he is. He gets away with political murder because of the lack of astuteness among the electorate.
One cannot run with the hare and hunt with the hounds. Ann Fenech does just that – see how she personally defended the Kuwaitis on the Mistra development.
She had a whole law firm of lawyers she could send but she still wanted to do it anyway. No, she has too many vested interests. She would have to leave Fenech & Fenech to be taken seriously.
Metsola maybe in a few years’ time. But now we have Simon Busuttil and he is good. He didn’t have the benefit of being a former prime minister yet when he contested as an MEP he got more No. 1 votes than Alfred Sant did in this election with the power of the ‘movement’ behind him.
So he is personable enough. He has what it takes but needs the resources and the right type of people beside him.
He has inherited a party in a mess and it is not an easy task to rebuild.
The sooner people realise that we need to help him build rather than constantly throwing stones, the sooner he will be able to get on with it.
Everyone needs to duck low as the shit is going to hit the fan, as we are currently on the same course as Spain. Good luck with that.
I hope that Joseph Cuschieri would be elected so that charity will gain from him being elected.
I hope the majority of those who didn’t turn up at the polling stations are switchers or floaters.
This would only confirm what we already know, that the Nationalist Party is a minority party.
Floaters don’t give the EP elections much weight. Before speaking about thrashings, one needs to analyse the political preferences of 24% of the electorate.
Both the PN and the MLP are minority parties.
Neither can muster a majority through its own core voters. Twenty-five years of almost continuous MLP electoral losses is proof of this.
The MLP have wider loyalty then the PN and this is probably due to the larger illiteracy within its ranks. (This statement is supported by NSO demographic reports)
The only way to muster a majority is by enticing the ever growing floating voter faction which is precisely what Joseph Muscat did in 2013.
It is now up to the PN to win them back and notwithstanding what anyone says, it has already started to do just that.
Simon Busuttil needs to go. He is a good man, and he did well in the EU campaign. But he lacks charisma and worst of all he lacks vision.
It is a big challenge to focus on a vision after such a defeat and when thanks to the PN, the biggest fights are over.
The PN needs someone to outwits Muscat marketing antics. Unfortunately the people still believe Muscat. But Simon Busuttil is not proving successful in any area.
Are you giving all the credit to Muscat? I would not. Who’s behind him, who’s advising him and who is ‘really governing’ without having been elected?
I don’t know their names, but they’re Chinese and their broker is British Indian called Shiv Nair.
No, I believe that Muscat on his own lacks both core and vision.
But his greed for power and his insecurity give him enough drive to surround himself with a marketing machine supported by good money.
I would tend to agree. Simon Busuttil is great being behind the scenes. Sadly he is not a good front man.
What you’re suggesting is that the PN adopts Labour’s tactic of raking in the cash in exchange for favours when in government, dipping into a bottomless well of finance to splurge on posters, leaflets, billboards, parties, sweeties, goodies and other feel good tactics.
Muscat reads the electorate well because it is cast in his image – an inclination to influence when made to feel important and prizing money and materialism above principle.
I agree with Daphne’s theory of the two Maltas. Labour never wanted and never will strive to lessen the gap because it is in their interest to have an ‘ignorant’ voting population.
One proof of this is the election of Sant and Dalli. The famous ‘magna tal-partit’ said that it wanted Sant and Dalli and everybody obeys. Can you imagine similar instructions being heeded by the PN voters? Certainly not to the same extent.
Dawn qatt ma kellhom ghal qalbhom l-avvanz veru tan-nies. Dejjem pappagalli riedu.
Surely not Beppe Fenech Adami or Mario Demarco – they are just as ineffective.
Please update us on the results in Europe and the probability of the European Socialists taking over Brussels too.
[Daphne – Use the internet, Bob, just as I would.]
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/
Today’s result reminds me of the 1987 result.
Compared to the 1981 election, in 1987 the difference between PN and MLP increased by 642 votes ‘only’ (4,142 in 1981 against 4,784 in 1987), while 11,017 more votes were cast (224,151 in 1981 compared to 235,168 in 1987).
KMB managed to show that certain measures do impact the way some people vote in spite of Raymond Caruana’s murder, Tal-Barrani incidents , political violence, 5 years and 5 months of government against the will of the majority, stagnant economy, torture at the Police HQ, and high unemployment.
To his credit, Joseph Muscat learnt the lesson well (Alfred Sant used to call it ‘the power of incumbency’; ironically he’s benefiting from it) and he has no qualms to practice it.
Why should he worry?
At the end, it is we who foot the bill.
Veru tal _labour injoranti u hamali daqshom mahawnx jivutaw ghal sant meta dan ma rrid l europa issa nistennew li Sant jahdem mhux joqghod cicc baxx fuq siggu Sur Sant.
Elezzjoni cara u tonda. Il-poplu qed jghix ahjar u mohhu mistrieh ghall-futur. Dan mhux rizultat li gabu Simon imma gej minn zmien Gonzi li halla l-partit ghaziz taghna jitfarrak u jfalli.
Mill-lum il-quddiem se tkun tigrija bejn Muscat u Busuttil biex Muscat jaqleb l-4 distretti li fadal favur tieghu u Simon jipprova jaqleb id-9 distretti favur tieghu.
Nahseb li Simon aktar ghandu cans jitla l-Everest milli jirbah l-elezzjoni generali li jmiss.
I’m not surprised – incompetent Labourites – it’s only the cash they count – the rest is not important as long as Labour keeps on looking after them – back dated promotions with arrears one hasn’t ever gained in 50 years – jobs for all the family: grand parents & grand children; and transfers to whoever gets in their way.
“Min he*a mexa, u min ma he*iex inhe*a.” That summarizes Maltese politics.
Being calm, nice, soft spoken and eloquent might work in northern Europe, but not in Siculo-Arabic Malta.
So true
So you are suggesting that PN should imitate PL. PN must consider having secret deals with China, Azerbaijan, Henley & something, have a union which is ready to buy A3 towers on its behalf, dismantle the Arriva transport system without having an alternative workable solution (let alone an alternative plan B) , etc, etc,
No way. No way. No way.
I tend to agree that maybe, just maybe, Simon Busuttil should offer the possibility for anyone to challenge him for the leadership of the party. And if someone else enjoys the support does have more support of the majority of the PN party members, then so be it. That is democracy.
However, if there is no other way to increase the 40% support of the maltese electorate, I prefer to remain represented in parliament by an honest opposition. That is the correct way to react in a democracy, even if the government acts like a dictatorship. Eventually, “is-sewwa jirbah zgur”
Why don’t you go ahead and vote for the MLP then if you’re that way inclined?
One more loss won’t make much difference to the PN at this stage but at least those that remain will have the integrity required to rebuild a decent PN once more.
The people want more lies and more arrogance and that’s what they going to get from the government . for the next four years and when election time comes the government starts dishing out political favors to keep people hoping.
I think it is stupid and wrong for us to interpret this election in this manner. When Daphne says that Maltese society is made up of largely illiterate, semi-literate and backward people, she is stating a painful fact.
Malta has gone seriously off track. We have a society which lacks basic life skills and values. They have been promised heaven on earth, cheap utility bills, cheap this and cheap that. It is too early to predict a disaster socially, yet it is looming slowly.
The Nationalists made a huge mistake by taking us in the EU without realising they are taking a very backward nation which in its majority has no idea what it means.
Now we have a government whose primary concern is to syphon enough wealth to make themselves worthwhile, while the country is left to rot.
The Nationalists did the opposite without realising that society does not understand the language of values and propriety.
Principles are principles, but who cares about them? What’s important is what is in my pocket, and that is what some of the hiding ex Nationalist Ministers did. Now we have to face the music.
Ikolli naqbel ma’ Corduta Mallia, li l-Maltin ‘injuranti’
X’ dwejjaq ghandkom
Le ta, m’ghandiex dwejjaq ghax hemm gvern li jisma’ u kif se jkolli bzonn xi haga immur fil-kju ghand xi ministru u ninqeda’. Mhux hekk suppost biex tkun qrib tal-poplu?
Forsi. Imma l-fatt li m’inix faccol jaghtini l-wens.
U xi darba, id-dwejjaq tieghi jaf jghaddi. Mill banda l-ohra, bniedem faccol bil mod jerga jigbor giehu.
I am not shocked at the result, and quite like Mrs. Caruana Galizia, I was expecting it.
The reason is not because Simon Busuttil is not good or because Joseph Muscat is brilliant. I really do think that, even though the key players may be, to a very slight extent responsible, they are not the key factors why elections in Malta, post 2003, are lost or won.
The key factor, in my view, is how people percieve what politics should be/do for them and then they vote the party which, in their view, gets them that result in the shortest term.
I am very sad – sincerely – to have to admit with myself and a few other like-minded individuals that the average Maltese views politics as a means to obtain handouts, government jobs, illegal building permits and suchlike “bonanzas”. So, for the average Maltese voter, a cheque for 110 euro, children’s allowance paid earlier, jobs and positions in public offices are the reason why politics exist.
Now, let us sincerely and objectively take a long hard look at our parties. The PL since Mintoff’s heyday has always been the handout bonanza party. I recall many elderly persons speaking about the way Mintoff gave them money for a bathroom, for example, and social services, for example. For them, Mintoff is hero because “he lifted them out of poverty”. Nationalists, they would tell you, were thinking of building hotels and factories but they gave us, the poor, nothing.
On the other hand, the PN vision of politics is totally different. Theirs is a vision of the creation of a land of opportunity – where an individual, irrespective of his origins, may become whatever he wants to become because society is structured in a manner as to engender social mobility.
The PN has been, on occasion, a handout party but only in determine circumstances and its politics and policies have been more long-term and visionary.
Since 2013 the PL has become even more of a bonanza party because it is also acting in total disregard of the law but rather recognising that people are not happy with the law and hence it chooses to brazenly ignore it – the Cyrus Engerer case and the amendments to the environmental laws are a clear illustration but there are many others (including the indiscriminate engagement of various civil servants without the involvement of the PSC, for example). It is a known fact that the Maltese people do not want discipline on their doorstep. A well known proverb recites “hadd ma jridha l-pulizija wara biebu” (nobody wants the police knocking on their door). This is another factor which the electorate will take into consideration every time it is called to cast its vote.
So, on the one hand you have the PL handing out cheques and ignoring the inconvenient laws (or downright amending them) and on the other, you have the PN which is the inventor (as it were) of rule of law in Malta and which gives one the tools to work hard and succeed.
It is very clear, in my view, that in this climate the PN does not stand a chance in hell.
This train of thought has been triggered by somebody who has asked me what I think the PN should do to rally more support – should Simon Busuttil be removed? Should there be more aggressive campaigning? Should it be more preseent online?
I frankly think that this is all wasted time. The PN can do nothing, at this stage, to rally support. It has even seen its core vote eroded. But why?
In reality, many people who have voted PN in the past did not do so out of conviction but out of convenience or because they wanted Malta to join the EU or because they wanted to vote Sant out. Now that Sant and the EU are out of the picture, the raison d’ etre of the PN is no more. Ironically, the PN has rendered itself irrelevant to many voters.
Joseph Muscat must know that this was always the Achilles Heel of the PN voter base and he is exploiting it to the full by courting would-be switchers to become his fans and supporters and by doing his damnest to consolidate his own core voter base (and the use of the term “suldat tal-azzar” and so on show this) and hence he is playing the music the people want to hear, what with handouts, jobs and so on, with the aim of making more inroads in the PN voter base.
So, base line is that the PN, I really believe, cannot do much, certainly not at this stage. It has to let things run their course – because there WILL be a day of reckoning, make no mistake – and consolidate internally starting off with its finances, which Iknow it is doing but it is miles behind the PL.
It also has to bear in mind that the PM is doing his damnedest best to try to annihilate the opposition. Judging from the TMI’s survey carried in today’s edition, the mantra the Opposition is negative (and the PL is, by comparison, positive) has been devoured hook, line and sinker by the electorate and the Opposition has the duty to work in this sense as well. I do not think the PN should change Simon Busuttill at this stage. Twelve months are not long enough to determine whether a leader is good or otherwise.
In the end, let us also not forget, that the PL has been gearing for this election – with a view of consolidating its power – since March 2013. The real governance of the country – as opposed to trying to appease all the factions within the party – starts tomorrow. For the moment, let us enjoy one of the few privileges of being armchair analysers – let us sit back and relax. It will be a harrowing ride for all of us who still have a brain between our ears but an interesting one nonetheless and the day of reckoning WILL come. Thankfully, when that day arrives we’ll be relieved not to have been “parti mill-istorja”.
I could not have put it better. And still we fail to understand. We are no more a people of principle. We never were. And life is short. So to the person who gives us what we want, in money or kind, which will make us a bit more comfortable……well, to him goes the vote, and to hell with the consequences.
[Daphne – And you approve of that and want the Nationalist Party to do the same, forcing more good and talented people to leave Malta in droves than they are already doing now. How exactly do you rationalize that?]
Spot on, Lomax.
il-maltin u l-ghawdxin mhux qed jimpurtahom mill-hazin u l-korruzzjoni li dan il-gvern qed jaghmel….. ejjew s’Ghawdex u tghixu kuljum dak li qed nghid…
And to think that Silvio Loporto used to boast in his hey-day that he was a Nationalist “minn guf ommu”.
[Daphne – That’s exactly the trouble. He sees it as a matter of heritage and identity, rather than political beliefs.]
We have to stop blaming the people and considering them as idiots (“snobbing” them). They are the same people which gave a majority to the PN from 1981 to 2008 except for 1996.
They are the same people whose votes the PN is asking for, and who the PN wants to lead. Let us stop making excuses: the problem is not that the message is not getting through – it is the message itself which the people are refusing.
Problem is, there is currently no message
No, they’re not the same people. Because a lot of new people were born after 1981 and a lot of new people are voting for the first time now.
How hard is it for you Maltese to understand demographics?
The C2DE segment has twice the birthrate of the ABC1s. I’ll spell it out for you since you cannot work it out yourself: the percentage of stupid people, semiliterates and hamalli is increasing.
Voting patterns will follow.
ABC1s are also more likely to leave and not return.
Precisely. They are more likely to abstain too. Or not collect their voting document. Or to find themselves abroad and unable to fly to Malta.
More likely, too, to vote AD, as the respectable fringe party.
If the Nationalist Party wants me to write the post-election report for them, I’ll do it, but they will have to read through a lot of Maltese taboos and unmentionables. Yes, socio-economic segments do exist. Yes, the lower ones are more likely to vote Labour. Yes, there are more of them in Malta. Yes, Labour’s core vote is much larger than the Nationalists’.
If we cannot work it out, it is because you have not explained yourself well, or because your argument does not make sense in the first place.
It seems that your argument is based on the fact that people who vote Labour, hard core or not, are stupid, semi-literate and hamalli, and have a higher birth rate. With an attitude like that (“imnejka”) you had better keep your report to yourself.
Don’t worry, dear Matthew A, the report is not intended for you. You need to be bright to understand it. You’re just loyal, but not bright.
i think that you have to be an eccentric snob, like you seem to be, to understand your arguments.
So, if I am reading correctly, a majority of you are indirectly saying that because a lot of these people voted against the EU membership 11 years ago they don’t have a right to vote for their EU representatives and celebrate for their respective party. Am I right?
Also I agree with ‘matthew a’. Why are you blaming the same people who 6 years ago voted for a PN government? In my opinion politics is just marketing and as these results show the PN don’t have people who are good at it. Especially Simon Busuttil, his childish explanations and discussions.
That is a Labour mindset speaking. Labour voters have a right to vote and to celebrate. And we all have a right to remark on the irony and hypocrisy, and to mock and ridicule the hypocrites and those who follow them.
Lomax is spot on.
The PN had been in government for 25 years bar 22 months under Sant – and have been in Opposition for just one year. In other words an Opposition party still in training.
What did you all expect – a miracle turn around? How totally naïve!
No political party has ever come back that quickly – it takes time.
The PN and Simon Busuttil need time -and should be given it. The last thing you need now is a revolving door of PN leaders.
As for Sant – maybe because of his anti-EU stance – he could be the best person for the an MEP job – to keep those Eurocrats under control.
Excellent comments by Lomax. This is the best analysis of the situation I have read so far. I agree 100%.
L atitudni u l arroganza bhal ta Ann Fenech,u ohrajn bhala ma jaghmlux gid.Din hi wahda min hafna ragunijiet ghax il PN qed jitlef il voti u mhux htijja kollha ta Simon Busuttil.Jien hekk inhoss.
in nies ma ridux jaraw il gonzi ish ghamel deba kbira fil pn u intkom tahsbu li dan risultat bhal ta elecjoni mandu x jaqsam xejn u fejn marru dawk il flus li gabbru il pn