Muscat has understood that his victory is a poisoned chalice

Muscat was quite clearly shocked at his victory last Sunday – shocked not at the fact that he knew he was going to win, but shocked because of the mere 2,000-odd votes by which he did.

He had obviously been aiming for a sweeping victory, which would have given him not only the adrenalin of triumph to which he appears to have be addicted, but also the justification for taking the stand that he did in the first place (“this is what the people want and I am with the people”).

In the end, what he got – despite his party’s campaigning under the radar and ringing people up on polling day to vote Yes – was a poisoned chalice. He got his victory, yes, because a win by even one vote is a win all the same and maintains the status quo, but he did not get what he needs: justification for his stance.

As he himself said on Sunday in subdued tones when the result was announced: half the country is adamantly against hunting in spring. Half the country, in other words, thinks his stance was the wrong one, will have objected to his taking it, and will now be blaming him for weighing in on the side of hunters.

Then there are those who really understood the issues at stake, that this is not a personal war on hunters, and who will be thinking of the prime minister as a complete wotsit for voting to shoot migrating birds in the breeding season and having his party urge others to do the same. Not quite the conservationist, is he? But then we knew that already.

So now we have a little bit of panic setting in. Education Minister Evarist Bartolo has taken to Facebook to defend the prime minister and say that he is not to be blamed for the result of the referendum, that it is not his fault.

How ridiculous. Evarist Bartolo can be the most impossible waste of space.

When people vote X or Y, it is because they want that precise outcome. People who voted Yes, like the prime minister, did so because they wanted the Yes lobby to win and birds to continue to be shot in the breeding season (that is exactly why the Opposition leader’s stance was morally and ideologically wrong even if it may have been tactically correct – votes are choices for an outcome).

People who voted No did so because they wanted the shooting of birds in the breeding season to end once and for all, and for Malta to be brought into line with the rest of Europe and the civilised world on this matter.

The prime minister voted Yes because he wants Maltese men to be able to carry on shooting and killing migrating birds when they are meant to be breeding (the birds, not the men). He voted Yes because he wanted that outcome. And he was determined to get that outcome.

Now that the verdict is what he wanted it to be but the outcome is not – in other words, the Yes vote was not overwhelming enough to justify his stance in the eyes of the rest of us – he is trying to disown his involvement.

But of course we blame him. We should.