‘Negative’ is what people want – because it’s not negativity, but justified fight-back and criticism
If you look at the votes of the PN candidates in this European Parliament election, you will see that the best performers have tended to be those who didn’t try to be all things to all men, who fought back, who made their voices heard, and who ripped government policy to shreds in different fields.
They are also the sort who don’t mince words when they speak.
The two candidates who were called traitors by the government because they fought against the sale of Maltese citizenship in the European Parliament shot to the top of the list and were the first to bag seats for the PN.
Norman Vella and Francis Zammit Dimech did very well despite being at the end of the ballot sheet and unable to benefit from the donkey vote.
The ones who performed most poorly were those who bought the ‘positive’ propaganda and appeared scared of offending or being thought negative by their Labour, fence-straddling or switcher friends.
The Labour Party didn’t come to power by being ‘positive’. It came to power by being seriously negative and destructive while repeating the mantra ‘positive’ for the bleating sheep who make up 90% of Maltese ‘superior society’ to repeat ad nauseam. Those bleating sheep never watched or listened to the Labour Party’s broadcast media, never read its newspapers or websites, and never followed its performance in parliament. They never really followed anything, full stop. So they were easy meat.
Proper, gloves-off criticism is what the Opposition is there for. When Opposition MPs are busy socialising with government MPs, when journalists are keener on cookies from the prime minister’s aides then on reporting the news for their readers, when key individuals are bought with pseudo-consultancies to provide the circuses in the government’s guiding principle of silencing the population with panem et circenses, then democracy is seriously undermined.
Some people understand this, and know that they are left undefended. And that is why they have voted for those most inclined to fight back on their behalf.
17 Comments Comment
Leave a Comment
I hope this post gets read by the PN leadership.
Amen!
Now we need the real Simon Busuttil.
If he goes down in 3.5 years time, he goes down with a fight.
Being nice and proper to the schoolyard bully will mean that the scared children will look for refuge somewhere else during the next lunch break.
Even though I’m very happy with the outcome, in that PN managed to clinch the third seat, yet I strongly believe that there is the need of real soul-searching within the PN. If PN really wants to win the next general election, it has to change tactics and strategies completely.
I am fed up reading such things as changing of tactics and strategies.
One has to consider that after 22 years Labour won with a big majority as normally happens in many countries.
The latest is India where the Congress Party which had been in office for a long time has been crushed.
Those who expected voters to make a turn-around in just 14 months are out of their minds when this government is still reaping from the good work of the previous administration.
Things take their time and persons with heads on their shoulders expect government policy to take its toll before things will turn for the better. Ex ministers and parliamentary secretaries should know this.
Unbelievable but true:
Asked what they hope is achieved for Malta by Alfred Sant and the other elected Labour candidates, a trio of middle aged men replied “L-aqwa irbana ahna”, “Kaxxkarnikom” etc!
Confused, they were then asked what the EU means to them, and the reply was a defensive “U issa jiz**bb naf”, or words to that effect.
Just to prove the emerging point, they were asked what EU stands for, and shown up for being the vegetables that they are, they got a little aggressive: “Hallina, haqq Alla, dabbar rasek l’hemm, ghax haqq al-madonna…”!
These are Labour’s elite you are talking about.
I did vote for Alfred Sant because in order to have a position on the EU, be it positive or negative, he had to do some form of research – something which can’t be said for many candidates on both sides.
Secondly, we don’t elect MEPs to be yes-men, and Alfred Sant certainly won’t be one since he was against the EU in the first place.
The EU is failing presently because it forgot that for a happy EU you first have to have happy member states not the other way round, something clearly reflected by the far-right votes in other countries (not a very great thing).
At least we went about expressing our disillusionment in a more civilised manner.
Is your reference to “happy EU” in the same vein of “Positive Energy”?
Alfred Sant may be a very intelligent man and also one who does his research but this doesn’t qualify one to be a good MEP.
An MEP should not be a yes man but should neither be a no man. He/She must be one who truly believes in the EU and what it stands for.
The fact that you stated that the EU is failing means that you have no flippant idea what EU is and what it stands for. The EU does not fail. It is the people who are selected to make the EU function who are failing.
If you have an organisation which is not functioning, you send people who can mend and make it function and not people whose aim is to destroy, dismantle and break up things. In a country where there is civil unrest you send Peace Keepers and not trigger happy Commandos.
All over the world (including European) there are people who want or don’t want the EU to function. The reasons are varied and can be economical or political. Even a party from an EU member state may not want to belong to the EU because the EU will not let the said party abuse of it’s positions: the reason can be varied.
If the EU members stay united and work together for a common goal, the EU will prevail for the benefit for it’s members. If voters send people whose aim is not the common good of all but have at heart their own or some partisan interest, therefore it stands to reason that EU will fail: but remember it is not the EU which fail but the people who are elect to the EU who fail us.
Ara Peppi ta’ xarabank u Bondi ta Bondi + m’ghahomx negattiv issa. Muscat lill-wiehed hallih ghaddej bil programm POSITTIV tieghu u l-iehor offrielu l-iced bun biex jalaghqlu halqu.
For these people the party is equivalent to the football team or to the band club. Us against them. The rest does not matter.
Yes I think the PN should fight fire with fire.
Battles are not won by people who take the soft approach but by people who take a position and fight for it till death.
So it’s for the PN to raise its voice and not to offer any handshakes to the goverment.
Like this the PN would only seem weaker than it is already looking.
I also think it is time for the PN to slick their propoganda machine. We used to be the envy of the MLP with our marketing and efficiency by introducing new standards.
Now we are only trailing or copying what others are doing. The PN should turn to graduates in different fields to come out with creative ideas how to reach different sectors effectively.
Also I believe that all is not is not lost but the electoral campaign should start from today as tomorrow may be too late.
Bleating sheep, all right. To this day one still comes across supposedly informed people who still repeat Labour propaganda and are incredulous when the true facts, warts and all, are brought to their attention.
So the public transport reform is dismissed as bendy buses, the Piano project/roofless theatre, Smart City/unkept promises, power station/fabbrika tal-kancer, Mater Dei Hospital/kurriduri, Tonio Fenech- who kept the economy ticking in very difficult times/arlogg tal-lira… and so on and so forth.
AMEN.
I totally agree. Having said that then Stefano Mallia should have been elected because he has been one of those who has been vociferous in his criticism of the government. I hope the PN rope him in for further involvement in the party.
Of course the Opposition is there to oppose but that is missing the point. What people want is for the party to not only criticise and be negative, but to make its own proposals in the form of clear binding electoral promises. Two that could bring back the switchers are:
1. Transparency. The PN promises to make all government contracts and winning tenders public, including existing ones such as H&P, Electrogas, PBS etc.
2. Meritocracy. The PN promises to make all government posts, including authorities, to be chosen in a fair and independent process.
These are promises that are easy to fulfill, unlike Jo’s grand promise to lower electricity tariffs, a promise that had to be fulfilled at great cost even though the new power station has not materialized yet (and won’t be for a long time). But it was that promise which won him two elections.
If one really wanted to know the meaning of negativity, the Oscar would go to……ONE NEWS with their ” gloom & doom ” propaganda.
The people who “shot to the top of the list” could have done so via the core PN vote, which is not a reflection of “what the people really want”, given that that vote is pretty much guaranteed.
With the available data, it is difficult to distinguish which class of voter voted for which candidate – and it is completely plausible that while the elected candidates got votes based on their harsh/”negative” criticism it is also possible that the more mellow/constructive candidates sourced their votes from people who vote either way depending on the times.
That is probably a better indication of what the electorate as a whole will vote for, given it is the only bit which changes.
Whether they want what is good for them or not is an entirely different issue, but hopefully it is the vote the PN will target if it wants any chance of getting elected going forward.