It was never about who would win or lose the election, was it? Although, in spite of all the surveys confirming each other, some people still managed to develop false hopes. It was always about whether Robert Abela would succeed in his mission of holding and beating Joseph Muscat’s numbers. He succeeded.
He played most foully for it. This wasn’t about relative advantage because of the power of incumbency. It wasn’t even about wilful abuse of the power of incumbency. To some extent that comes with the game.
Robert Abela and the Labour Party are responsible for a series of corrupt and illegal acts that have turned the advantage of incumbency into a bandwagon of inevitability.
What may or may not yet amaze you is that the largest opposition party in Malta will consume itself into a bloody debate on whether they should even complain about this flagrant abuse. The momentary unity that lasted this campaign, shook violently minutes after the result came out. It will get worse, not least because of the composition of the new Opposition parliamentary group.
Consider how Bernard Grech made a public call for the cheques sent to all households two weeks before the general election to be investigated as a corrupt practice in terms of the electoral law. He went beyond the politics of it, that it’s abusive and unfair. He suggested that the action should be looked into in terms of whether it was legal or not.
In the meantime, the muttering of others within the PN were not about what foul play Labour played to increase its monopolistic grip on power. In the guise of humility, of listening to the people, of needing to learn from mistakes, people motivated by the benefits or addicted to the awe of the perpetual power of the PL look to blame, reasons within the PN.
What they’re doing in fact is stoking a repeat of the mess of 2017, where people veiled their hatred and envy of others within their party in a wrapping of soul searching, of reform, and of renewal. The show trials of Stalinist Russia were also claimed to be an exercise of renewal.
Bernard Grech seems intent not to do a Simon Busuttil. He is accepting the election result but he’s not carrying the blame for it. He insists he must stay on. You could say that it is proper for a leader who has lost the election to make way for someone else. But 2017 should have taught the PN that that is the way to make way for Labour’s best interests to be served.
Scratch the surface of so-called analyses of people listing things the PN did wrong and the first thing you’ll miss is a list of the wrong things Labour did to win.
Look out for the finger-pointing, the blaming, the accusations of millstones hanging around the PN’s neck coming from people who want nothing better than to see the PN drown.
This can get very ugly very fast. Brace yourself.