Reading the polls

Early last Sunday morning, the picture of this newspaper’s front page was already doing the rounds on social media. Enthusiastic PN supporters were sending it to as many people as possible because it said that the ‘PN lead Labour by 12,000 votes despite Grech’s poor showing’.

Apart from the margin of error that every poll has, no enthusiastic PN supporter apparently noted that the poll was based on a 75.7% turnout while the rest would have decided not to vote.

In a real election, those deciding not to vote would be much less than 24.3% and it is obvious that, in the current circumstances, many of these are disgruntled Labour supporters or disappointed switchers, who today are saying that they will not be voting come the next general election. However, come election time, many will vote and, as things stand, the majority will vote Labour and so upsetting the difference of votes touted in the headline... to the disappointment of those enthusiastic PN supporters who thought that their party will win the next election.

The biggest challenge that the PN has is to persuade those disgruntled voters to jump the fence and vote PN. I reckon the PN is quite far away from achieving this feat. Joseph Muscat did it on the back of complacency and disgruntlement resulting from Lawrence Gonzi’s way of doing things. Will the PN manage to do something similar, enough to win the election? I think it is possible but – as things stand – improbable.

The reason is mostly due to ‘Grech’s poor showing’ as the same newspaper headline put it. As far as I know, no party leader, who in a trust poll was trailing behind the adversary, managed to win the election at the expense of a more popular party leader.

So, as long as Robert Abela leads the PN leader in the trust poll his chances of being re-elected are practically taken for granted.

Bernard Grech was chosen as PN leader in difficult circumstances and he has manged to unify the various opposing factions within the PN into one coherent Opposition. And, considering the infighting that was going on in the PN, this was a notable achievement.

But his popular support outside PN headquarters was always weak. It is said that voters are fickle but they do have a knack of sensing the shortcomings of a political leader, more so in the case of the leader of a party they support.

Today, Labour is suffering from internal party divisions and there is a lot of complacency and disgruntlement among Labour supporters. The situation though has not led to the discovery of a popular leader who can replace Robert Abela and take over the reins after an electoral victory.

Talk by Joseph Muscat aficionados of him replacing Robert Abela before the next election is just a belief in their impossible wishes rather than any serious possibility.

In a situation where the two leading parties are found wanting, one way or another, the resurgence of a third party would be normally expected. But this is Malta and such results do not seem possible.

The ball falls squarely on the trust and personal support enjoyed by the PN leader. And this is where the PN is lacking. Personally, I think it is impossible for some impressive rise in Bernard Grech’s personal popularity and therefore the PN must seek an alternative who can do it.

Many think it is unfair for Grech to be dropped and sacked from his leadership role after all he did to rescue the PN from the doldrums he inherited. But politics is a savage game with rules that call for decency being, in fact, inexistent. Look at the piques between candidates of the same party and how the ‘voting game’ is fought between them at a local level.

In politics, nothing is more savage than what happens when the time comes for a party leader to be replaced. Look at what is happening in the UK’s Conservative Party.

The PN is still suffering from the shenanigans of the party establishment that elected Lawrence Gonzi and subsequently Simon Busuttil as party leaders. The party plotters felt they had had enough and the resulting mess is history.

A new inspirational leader is actually the real cure for the party.

Will it happen?

A rare apology

The Chief Justice apologised last Tuesday after press photographers were banned from covering the ceremony marking the opening of the forensic year at the law courts on Monday.

Photographers who turned up at the law courts for the annual ceremony were stopped from entering. Only photographers of the Department of Information and those from the Office of the President and the Office of the Prime Minister were allowed in.   

The Institute of Maltese Journalists (IĠM) said it had been told by the Court Services Agency that the decision was made by the Chief Justice himself.

But in a statement, the Chief Justice said there appeared to have been a ‘miscommunication’ and it had never been his intention to ban press photographers, insisting that ‘what happened was a genuine mistake,’ and that no such ban had ever been made in his years as chief justice.

It is refreshing to see a Chief Justice apologising when there was a mistake.

I do not think any Maltese chief justices or any Maltese judges have ever apologised for their mistakes and I do not think they were infallible until the mistake for which the Chief Justice apologised.

Judges are humans and as humans they have their opinions and their biases. The best judges are the ones who can rise above their personal opinions and deliver decisions taken without any personal prejudice.

Even so, considering the size of the country, Malta is lucky to have had so many reliable judges, who were not afraid to stick their neck out when push came to shove. Those who did not were few and far between.

A serious and responsible judiciary is a ‘sine qua non’ for Malta’s democracy.