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Labour goes into electioneering mode

Alfred Sant’s speech in Parliament last Wednesday served as confirmation that the Labour Party has already moved into electioneering mode – a sign that was first in evidence two weeks ago at the Zebbug mass meeting.

After opinion polls conducted in October had put the Labour Party well below the Nationalist Party it became clear that the MLP needed to do something to bolster morale among its supporters. The party has for the last three years been characterised by a siege mentality, hitting out at all those who criticise its positions and policies.

The most recent description of EU parliamentarian Nicole Fontaine as a ‘Taliban’ proves that the party is still trying to convince its die-hards that the party is as aggressive as ever.

Labour’s Zebbug mass meeting was a call to arms for the party faithful, but it was also an attempt to reach out to middle class Malta.

After having groomed the grass roots for three years with hard hitting discourse and promises of ‘looking after’ Labour supporters, once in government, the Labour Party is now looking at ways of luring middle class voters. Dr Sant knows full well that in a close fought election the middle class voters will be the ones to determine the outcome. And aggressive discourse will only serve to alienate them further from the Labour Party.

In the nineties the Labour Party developed a love-hate relationship with middle class Malta. In 1992 Labour got a devastating thumbs down. This was reversed in the 1996 election victory only to be rejected by the same voters, two years later.

Last Wednesday Dr Sant went one step further than simply criticising the Nationalist government’s performance. He spelt out what an alternative Labour government would do to solve the problems the country faces.

Both in Parliament and in Zebbug Dr Sant was careful not to be too specific on solutions so as not to tie any future Labour government’s hands.

His speeches were peppered with referrals to issues that concern middle class voters such as the environment, taxes and government expenditure.

Dr Sant has never promised that a Labour government would not introduce new taxes, however on Wednesday he pledged that the tax burden would be eased and that any changes to consumption taxes, including VAT, would be implemented within a month of the new government taking office.

Elaborating more on his Zebbug speech in Parliament, Dr Sant said that a Labour government would remove or cut down on unnecessary costs and structures. He even spoke about ‘moderate privatisation’ to curb expenditure.

The discourse points toward a fresh dynamic government that will be results-orientated but was kept sketchy and vague rather than detailed.

On the environment, Dr Sant spoke against the proposed Virtu golf course in Zebbug but in Parliament reiterated his position in favour of a golf course in Gozo.

He said that the Maghtab and domestic waste problems would be solved, however no details were forthcoming even though it is the details that matter in these issues.

Despite the lack of detail in the discourse it is clear that the Labour leader is trying to project a moderate image to regain the trust of middle class Malta.

A telling sign of Labour’s intention to shift towards the middle ground is Dr Sant’s most recent buzzword that the Labour Party needs to build a ‘new social coalition’.

This statement is akin to the pre-1996 call to build new social alliances with various sectors of society. Then the Labour Party had embarked on an outreach exercise to gain the trust of the business community, intellectuals, university students, hunters, the disabled, housewives, working mothers and environmentalists.

The continued drumming of the buzzword is an indication that the MLP will be meeting various sectors of society over the coming months in a bid to take its message to the ‘silent’ masses.

It is evident that Dr Sant has set the ball rolling to try and convince the middle class that his party is a government in waiting. But occasional slip-ups such as the ‘Taliban’ fiasco and the lack of composure shown by Marie Louise Coleiro during last week’s ‘Xarabank’ programme, which discussed the budget, show that the trust-building exercise is a painstaking one indeed.