With the election campaign now nearing the end of its second week, the news from the hustings never ceases to amaze – and bemuse – me.
As I have already written in this newspaper and elsewhere, the AD pipedream of taking part in a coalition government is, realistically speaking, an impossibility. A coalition government is theoretically possible if the election produces a Parliament with MPs from more than two parties, with no party having obtained the absolute majority (50 per cent + one) of first preference votes.
In this scenario there is no constitutional mechanism for the adjustment of the distribution of seats between parties, and the 65 seats elected according to the system used in our elections will be final. Since the electoral boundaries have been drawn up to favour the MLP, this party will have a majority of seats (33 or more) irrespective of the percentage of first preference votes that it garners. This means that Alfred Sant would become Prime Minister without needing to forge a coalition with anyone.
But apart from these considerations, the sheer small size of the candidatures of both AD and AN – let alone the other bits and pieces – signify that the two parties have not managed to obtain the critical mass necessary for either of them to become a political party represented with MPs in the House of Representatives.
The most recent election that produced more than two parties in Parliament took place 46 years ago, way back in 1962 when Malta was still a colony and when the politico-religious dispute between Dom Mintoff and Archbishop Gonzi was at its height. I was less than 17 years old but I remember it well. The so-called small parties that managed to get MPs elected in a 50-seat Legislative Assembly (as it was then called) were in fact two splinter groups of the PN and the MLP, Ganado’s Democratic Nationalists (PDN) and Pellegrini’s Christian Workers (CWP) who managed to garner four seats each, and one sole representative of the Progressive Constitutional Party, Miss Mabel Strickland herself. Over time the two splinter groups merged back to where they had come from and Miss Strickland’s party became obsolete.
The two splinter groups were organised parties in their own right, with their clubs and newspapers. Moreover the difference between the PN, MLP, PDN and CWP in the number of candidates fielded by them for the then 50 seat assembly was negligible. Compared with the nine candidates fielded this week by AD and the eleven fielded by AN for 65 seats, the number of candidates fielded by the PDN and the CWP was formidable. In all districts the number of candidates for the PDN and the CWP practically matched those for the MLP and the PN.
This is what I mean when I say that neither AD nor AN have managed to achieve a critical mass in candidature that would ensure that they could have a really fighting chance to getting someone in. If in an electoral district there are 10 PN and 8 MLP candidates campaigning and doing home visits while there are only 1 or 2 from AD and from AN, it is obvious that the enormous difference between the number of candidates makes the campaigning – and its effects – unequal from the word ‘go’!

In every election campaign when the PN is the incumbent party in power, the MLP accuses the members of Cabinet of corruption. This happened in 1966, 1971, 1992, 1996 and 2003. It is also happening this year.
The people serving in these Cabinets over these 40 years were considerably different characters. For the MLP, however they are all the same. Apparently for them, any member of Cabinet in a PN government is, ex ufficio, corrupt!
By their antics, the MLP have not only demeaned politics but they have also diluted the meaning of the word ‘corruption’. No wonder that according to the MaltaToday poll published last Sunday, corruption is of top concern to only 2.7% of respondents.
Alfred Sant’s recent revelation that the promised 50% cut in the fuel surcharge levied on water and electricity consumption will apply only for domestic consumers and not for commercial and industrial consumers reveals the amateurish and irresponsible way that this promise was made. It is obvious that this newly discovered restriction is an afterthought. What is more damning is that it makes a mockery of the calculations on the cost of this promise that was made by several MLP spokesmen, including Deputy Leader Charles Mangion and General Secretary Jason Micallef.
Add to this the fact that the MLP is also refusing to guarantee that there will not be any increases in the tariffs for water and electricity consumption and in the meter rent charges and you have a political mess of ‘Santian’ proportions!

Six months short of his ninety-second birthday, Dom Mintoff is not the same Dom Mintoff of 40 years ago, whatever Josie Muscat says. His recent sterile antics at the offices of the Electoral Commission confirm his state of mind.
Most of the time I spent in politics was taken up by the struggle against Mintoff’s impositions on the people of Malta and I have no sympathy for his policies when in government. I believe that Malta has still not managed to shake off the negative effects of what he did – and what he allowed others to do – when he was in power. But I also believe that the dignity of every human being is sacred, and this tenet does not allow for exceptions.
In recent years, I have had the opportunity to meet Mintoff several times, although not as recently as Dr Muscat and I have no doubt that while the state of his health is very good considering his age, he has become more of a caricature of himself – just as any normal human being who reaches that sort of age becomes. His obsessions and fixations have not only matured: they have now rigidly and immovably set like concrete. There are other indications that show that age is taking its toll, but I do not think that it is prudent to expound on this.
I was therefore shocked to see AN leader Josie Muscat in prime time PBS television news last Monday, saying that Mintoff is his same old self.
On this occasion Josie the politician has undoubtedly ill-served Josie the medical practitioner.