A response to an SMS I sent to a friend telling him the PN had won the election says it all: “The PN did not win. It did not lose,” he wrote back.
Before PN diehards start jumping up and down, waving flags in my face and making as much noise as they can, they should start to reflect and look at what happened.
For a change, I had been zapping the local channels in the early hours and all through Sunday and I could see how anxious the PN representatives were getting, while the MLP spokespeople were getting progressively less optimistic.
The very tight election result, the fact that ministers have lost their seats in Parliament and the number of people who did not bother to vote, (5,266 voting cards were not collected, more than double the number in 2003) should have delivered a clear message that the PN only scraped through because of a weak Opposition – an MLP that had relied heavily on the electorate’s discontent with certain elements within the PN.
It is ironic that while education was one of the lynch pins in this election – with the MLP promising a reception class and the PN rubbishing it and lauding their own success in education – and the young were the first to be thanked by Dr Gonzi for his re-election, the former Minister of Education has lost his seat in Parliament.
Maybe, he got blamed for the much commented on recent bad behaviour at the university. Parliament has lost a valid contributor: Louis Galea was also a shrewd Cabinet minister and a voice to be reckoned with. Let us hope he has not been ousted by an empty vessel.
In the early 1990s, he had done much to promote women, and it was partly thanks to him that we finally got a few women in Parliament. He, however, unfortunately, later seemed to have lost interest in that cause.
But to get back to the MLP, at the press conference Dr Alfred Sant gave on his resignation as party leader he refused to comment on what went wrong for the MLP, emphasising instead an unbalanced media. He is definitely right about the latter. However, the MLP needs to take a good hard introvert look at its performance. It needs to take responsibility and not always blame outside sources for its failure. Losing an election at a time when most of the electorate did want change indicates that a good shake-up is needed within the MLP.
Some of us have felt it for a while. Since Dr Sant had lost three elections since 1998, some argue that the MLP should have taken up his offer to resign the leadership in 2003.
However, there is no doubt that he has an enormous following. He garnered 9,404 votes in the 1st district and 7,110 in the 8th. But, he did not lead his party to victory.
One of the contenders for the MLP leadership, Michael Falzon, might have got a good number of votes from hunters and fireworks enthusiasts, but the votes that would have made a difference to the MLP belonged to people who are against bird hunting and noise and air pollution.
Overall, the MLP improved its percentage of the vote and the PN lost 2.5 per cent on the 2003 vote.
Still considering the MLP did make mistakes, which cost it the election, a strong message from half the electorate has been delivered. In that context was it wise for Dr Gonzi to call a PN mass meeting yesterday evening?
I would have thought that the PN supporters had enough of monopolising the streets on Monday without causing further disruption. It was impossible for doctors to get to their patients in Valletta on Monday morning and when doctors managed to get through in the afternoon, there were no pharmacies open to dispense medicines.
I had raised the problems of access for Valletta residents when the Central Bank got its Euros delivery. But even worse problems were encountered on Monday.
People in need of a doctor were told that their only alternative to getting medical attention was to call an ambulance.
On the other hand getting patients to vote is another matter. I was appalled to see an elderly lady being wheeled in on her bed at the Sliema polling station. It seems that dignity flies out of the window at election time.
Considering all the scaremongering that had been generated about the MLP, the losers have behaved impeccably, despite the overbearing gloating of the ones who did not lose. At least daytime on Tuesday was back to normal, but does a PN mass meeting really tally with ‘Together, everything is possible’? Dr Gonzi seems to be having a problem with trying to make the slogan happen at the moment.
On the one hand, he was very good at silencing the boos from his supporters when he even paid tribute to the Opposition media, and said “Our country will get stronger the more we are capable of working together – even with those who have differing opinions... The people had shown great maturity, and all, even those who voted for the MLP, should feel proud”.
But on the other, he does not want to upset the diehards who want to maintain the divisions by staging a big show. This is the opportunity for Dr Gonzi to become a true statesman, if only he can make his words a reality.

pamelapacehansen@gmail.com