Muscat’s ‘carpe diem’

Looking back on this campaign, the question many of us might ask is: how did both parties manage to get away with saying more or less the same things for nine whole weeks?

Starting with the chosen topic of PBS's 'evening with Joseph Muscat', which was (surprise, surprise) the Labour Party's own campaign motto: 'Malta Taghna Lkoll' (Malta belongs to all of us).

Joseph Muscat prefaced his pitch by stressing the need for change, reminding viewers that many of the less pleasant aspects of this campaign - including its duration, but also the emphasis on division and political 'colour' - were rooted in choices made by Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi.

Now, he said, the electorate was faced with a choice of its own. On one hand voters could choose the Labour Party, which had a roadmap comprising 20 clear priorities, all neatly translated into a concrete plan of action contained in the party manifesto... and on the other, there was the PN which offered only 'more of the same'.

Not only did the PN's programme simply pick up where the past term of office left off; but the PN's electoral promises today were the same promises they had made five years ago, but failed to deliver.

Moreover, Muscat said, the country's present direction was flawed. Alluding to the various scandals that have engulfed the campaign, Muscat stressed that a Labour government would lose no time implementing many of the important reforms the PN itself had promised before the last election: including the whistleblower's act and a law to regulate party financing.

Asked (by the Independent's Keith Micallef) about his earlier views regarding the European Union, Muscat acknowledged that the question was 'legitimate' - actually he would go on to religiously recognise the legitimacy of (and thank the journalist for) every single question asked, bar none - and promptly admitted that his views had changed.

It was normal, he said, for one's views to evolve over time. Turning to a statement made by Gonzi at the recent Times' debate, he pointed out how even the PN leader had acknowledged that the people had been right to vote in divorce: despite having himself campaigned for a 'No'.

Deflecting a subsidiary question that the PL had not committed to a position, Muscat insisted thta he had 'personally' campaigned for divorce... "and I think I analysed that situation correctly."

In the meanitme, Muscat had submitted himself to the judgment of the electorate (in the 2005 MEP election), and had been trusted to represent voters in the european parliament. His reappraisal of Malta's European accession had to be considered in the context of his subsequent experience of european institutions.

NET TV's Jesmar Baldacchino up next, and he seized on a promise of land reclamation to ask whether he was worried that the resulting construction boom might detonate the property price bubble.

Correcting his interlocutor on the issue of whether this promise had been included in the Pl manifestio - "It's right here, look: page 106, paragraph eight" - Muscat added that the intention was not to build apartment blocks but to expand territory and create 'green jobs'.

This was not the first time land had been reclaimed, he added: citing the Freeport, the Delimara power station, Marsa and Msida Circus as examples of projects involving land reclamation.

Sticking to the environment theme, MaltaToday's Miriam Dalli centred her questions on two proposals: the reform of MEPA, and the rumoured 'secret concordat' with the hunters' lobby. Wouldn't the former result in fewer checks and balances for building contractors? And isn't the latter a reminder of the secret agreement between the PN and the Armier boathouse owners before the last election?

Muscat defended the proposal to split MEPA's planning and environmental directorates on the grounds that it had been drawn up in consultation with environmetnal lobby groups.

As for the agreement with the FKNK I won't bother listing out the 'six points', because the Labour Party announced the agreement earlier this afternoon (after the pre-recorded debate) and you can read all about it  in our earlier news.

Suffice it to say that Muscat emphatically insisted that he did not intend to repoen the negotiated package with the EU, but would limit his demands to insisting that Maltese hunters and trappers are subject to the same conditions - no more, no less - as their foreign counterparts.

He also said that 'unlike the PN' he would not send the hunters written guarantees... and later he would repeat this same pledge with regard to public service employees (at Air Malta, at Enemalta, and various corporations) who likewise had received written assurances of job security before the last election.

He also denied he was 'hunting for votes', on the grounds that not all hunters came away satisfied from the meetings.

Soon muscat found himself on the defensive over his own campaign slogan - which was apparently belied by some fo his own and his colleagues less than complimentary statements about the Nationalists (and their faces, families, DNA, etc).

"The PN are currently running a clip with something I said in 1998," Muscat replied, adding that if you go back that far you will find contradictions everywhere.

Insisting that the PL campaign was indeed positive, Muscat pointed out that his party had taken a conscious decision not to erect a single 'negative' billboard. This decision, he inferred, was based on the feedback his party had received from people in the street: including disllusioned Nationalists who have now understood that "their Prime Minister is held hostage by a system that has engulfed him."

Inevitably, Muscat's argument led him to the crux of this whole election. "The choice is not between red and blue, not between raising a red flag to replace a blue one, but to raise a red and white flag that represents the entire nation."

Here Muscat appealed indirectly to a sense of history in the making. This was an "exciting prospect", especially for first time voters who had an opportunity to shape their country's direction.

This in turn illustrated a small paradox : for all his insistence on 'positive campaigning', Muscat took any number of pot shots at the current administration. In reply to an astute question about whether he would "repeat 1996" - i.e., dioscover a 'hofra' when in government, and fail to deliver on his many promises - Muscat merely reminded us that it was Gonzi who holds the record for broken promises.

"The Prime Minister has no credibility in this regard. He has repeatedly failed to meet his own targets."

Labour's programme, on the other hand, was costed; and indulging in a little clairvoyance, Muscat predicted that "there would be no need to redimension our proposals because they have already been redimensioned."

Unlike the bonanza of goodies recklessly promised by the PN, Labour kept its feet on the ground, and only offered what it knew (based on realistic projections of economic growth) it could afford.

It was a theme he would repeat with regard when asked whether he would reinstate public holidays that had been axed under this administration. No he would not, was the reply, because given the economic climate, the country couldn't afford it.

In an unusual twist, the worst was reserved for last. Perhaps in prelude to an as yet undisclosed electoral twist, Jesmar Baldacchino based his last on a contradiction between Jason Micallef's earlier stated intention not to contest this election (after falling out with Muscat), and the fact that he eventually threw his hat into the ring.

Exactly why this was felt to be an important issue - important enough to save for last - is anyone's guess. But in reality the question only furnished Muscat with a gift platform from which to turn the tables onto the PN: pointing out how Micallef made that commitment at roughly the same time as Simon Busuttil, MEP, had similarly declared he would not contest. Yet not only is he contesting this election; he is now deputy leader of the PN.

A smart return, yes, even if it didn't quite answer the question. But by now Muscat had simply moved on to the completely unrelated issue of Labour's energy plans, and why these are better than the PN's gas pipeline proposal.

Pointing towards a news item from just the day before, Muscat highlighted how the gas pipeline connection between Italy and Libya had to be suspended owing to security problems at Libya's end. And the PN, he added, is proposing a similar link between Malta and Italy.

 "If we wanted to be negative, we could seize on this fact to attack the PN's energy plans. We could point out that the PN cannot give guarantees that similar problems in future would not likewise plunge Malta into darkness...."

The same applied to the interconnector, which could conceivably be severed by a passing ship weighing anchor.

"But we chose to run a positive campaign, so we won't resort to these tactics," he said: which can be roughly translated as "If I wanted to be nasty, I'd call you a &^%$. But I'm not nasty, so I won't." (Small problem: you already did, right there.)

Apart from  providing some light comic relief, this digression also managed to impart the impression that Muscat's was actually a pre-rehearsed answer that he would have given regardless what question he was asked. I got the same impression from his closing message - which was a resounding call for unity, curiously framed against the backdrop of an impressive list of government failures to control corruption.

The message will surely have  resonated with the faithful, even if it sounded rather rehearsed, and at moments Muscat himself looked and sounded rather  tired. Still, after eight weeks of intense campaigning... who wouldn't?