Election Playbook: A short recap of very very long month

A slow but dramatic start: The first week of the campaign (which feels like a decade ago) saw the PN and PL off to different starts. The PN felt slow and evidently struggled to get to the PL’s pace, as it focused solely on health proposals. Meanwhile, the PL entered the race sprinting, announcing major initiatives among other proposals, all during big-budget press conferences. Seeing all of this, a PN employee even told me that they thought they were going to lose by 50,000 votes after such a difference in strength. The only hitch in Labour’s strong start came in the form of Roderick Galdes, who was barred by the party’s executive from contesting the election. Despite filing a formal complaint, Galdes eventually gave in and stopped causing problems for the party. 

Racism: Malta’s not-so-silent xenophobia problem reared its ugly head during the election, but what was worse is what followed afterward. It all started when activist Omar Rababah announced that he will be contesting the general election on the PL ticket, which triggered a wave of backlash and accusations that he will force Islam onto Malta. His party leader, and the one who called on him to contest defended him as he reassured supporters of his Maltese heritage. But in the following days, Robert Abela and Alex Borg seemingly wanted to stress that they too are xenophobes at heart. One of the only instances where the two leaders agreed on something was when they voiced their opposition to the development of a second mosque. None of them shied away from deliberately excluding foreign workers from their promises. In the end, Omar Rababah had to post videos of himself singing għana to show that he’s as Maltese as they come. I just wish he sang “Viva ż-Żejza” instead.