GUEST POST: “Four years down the road I am wracked with guilt. The gamble didn’t work out.”

A friend wrote this as a guest post and sent it in for publication. She says she would rather not have her name on it.

Having been brought up in a fairly liberal, nonpartisan family, I voted Nationalist throughout my life. My family had been targeted viciously and unfairly by the Mintoff regime. I had no other option.

Here I hasten to add that not once in my life did my family receive any ‘favours’ from either party.

I have always believed that freedom of thought and speech are the basic requirements for a ‘serene’ life. There were many times when I rebelled against the uncompromising religious stance adopted by the party of my choice. However, the fact that I could always speak my views out without fear of reprisal made up for the close-minded views.

Then it all changed. I became a switcher. I felt our country needed a change…bla, bla, bla…When I was in that booth, voting for Labour, I apologised to my father, long gone. I asked him to understand why I was doing it. Why oh why didn’t I listen to him telling me not to do it?

Four years down the road I am wracked with guilt. The gamble didn’t work out. I am totally shocked and numbed by the blatant dishonesty and criminality that abounds. I am amazed that some switchers are still bleating on about not voting, or even intending to draw obscene pictures on their ballot sheet to nullify it.

I am gob-smacked that anyone with a modicum of intelligence could even consider voting these greedy criminals into power again, either directly by voting Labour, or by default by not voting at all.

I appeal to all those who made the same mistake as I made in 2013 to make the right choice this time.