Election Playbook: Metro confusion and the Abelas' maqrut

Metro: It appears that I’ve let myself down last week when I said that the PN’s plan to deliver a fully-fledged metro in five years is impossible. On Tuesday, MaltaToday revealed “Project Hestia,” a financial feasibility study commissioned by Infrastructure Malta in 2023 which shows that the PN’s metro can be built within five years. This was followed by the PL stating that the report was binned because the project would skyrocket public debt to 76% of GDP and the deficit to 8.2%. I genuinely don’t know what to make of these updates. It could be the election exhaustion, the fact that PN and PL statements should be taken with a kilo of salt, or the fact that any news piece regarding metro projects might as well be coming out of a fairytale book. Whatever the case, it seems that the last two days of this campaign just got hotter.

PL Lawyers: MaltaToday also published a breakdown of candidates’ professions, where it transpired that the two biggest parties have 48 lawyers as candidates. As if people need another excuse to tune out of politics. But amazingly, the Labour Party is fielding more lawyers as candidates than the PN. Imagine going back in time and reading that article to Dom Mintoff back when the PL was a proper workers’ party. But I guess that wouldn’t be the worst aspect of the modern PL that would terrify Mintoff. I wonder what he would think of Malta’s new underclass of foreign workers, and whether he would be more terrified of their treatment under the PL’s watch, or whether he would be as xenophobic as the voter base his successor loves appealing to.

Maqrut: Speaking of Mintoff’s successor, I wasted more time than I care to admit watching a video of Robert Abela and his wife eating a maqrut (fried date pastry). Seriously, take a look at this video and press pause at any moment and you have a masterpiece. Even while writing this piece I find it hard to concentrate on anything other than that maqrut. Why do the Abelas keep biting away on one side of the maqrut? Why are they taking one bite at a time and passing it on like it’s a joint? Who finished the maqrut?? I’ve been looking forward to a Robert Abela gym vlog video in this election, but now I completely changed my mind. Let’s have Robert and Lydia sampling pastizzi, or eating a kannol from both sides like in Lady and the Tramp. If Abela’s media team is reading this, please grant me this wish.