Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1508472
OPINION 10 maltatoday | WEDNESDAY • 27 SEPTEMBER 2023 SOMETHING, somewhere, doesn't quite add up. (Or maybe it does: but I'm too crap at math- ematics, to figure out exactly how...) Nonetheless, the numbers speak for themselves. And so does this headline from last Sun- day's Independent: "PN mar- ginally ahead of PL, but more people trust Robert Abela than Bernard Grech." "If an election were to be held tomorrow, the PN would receive a marginal 0.4% more votes than the PL [...] It would translate into a mere 1,500 votes, incidentally similar to the difference with which the PN won its last elec- tion in 2008." Now: if this were the only in- dication, of what effectively amounts to a COLOSSAL rever- sal of fortunes for the two major parties... I'd be little wary of plac- ing too much credence in it, my- self. (No offence or anything: but surveys do occasionally turn out to be wrong, you know...) But it's not the only indica- tion: far from it. Last July, Mal- taToday published a remarkably similar survey, in which the PN actually led Labour by a slight- ly higher margin (0.6%). And while two polls, in the space of two months, might still not be enough to firmly establish a 'trend'... our December 2022 poll had already registered the begin- ning of a decline for Labour, ac- companied by slow (but percep- tible) gains by the PN. Clearly, then, those two sur- veys cannot be altogether off- the-mark. Something must have happened, over the past two years, to virtually eviscerate La- bour's previously 'unassailable' electoral advantage. But this only brings us to the part that doesn't add up. Some- what bizarrely, the same two surveys also indicate that Robert Abela is more 'trusted', as a par- ty leader, than Bernard Grech; and the difference - 36% to 29% - is significantly higher than the 0.4% deficit that divides the two parties themselves. It turns out, then, that Robert Abela is a lot (but a LOT) more popular, than the party he leads. And this, too, should remind us of the 2008 election: which the PN had won by a whisker, large- ly thanks to a strategy (which it would later regret) of reducing itself to an extension of its own leader... through the notorious slogan, 'GonziPN'. Labour, too, did something similar in the 2022 election. Per- ceiving (rightly, with hindsight) that its leader was by far its big- gest marketable asset, against the PN's Bernard Grech: it plastered Robert Abela, together with his wife Lydia, on billboards all over the island... under the slogan, 'FUTUR SABIH!' (Translation: 'Look at us, how beautiful we are! THAT's how beautiful your own future could be, too!') Sure enough, the strategy worked on both occasions: and in 2008, in particular, Gonzi's popularity was arguably the ON- LY factor that secured such a wafer-thin majority for the PN (in an election that most con- sidered 'destined' to be won by Labour). Today, on the other hand? The situation is both similar to, and different from, the 2008 scenar- io, at the same time. Let's start with that 0.4% deficit between the two parties. If you ask me, the most alarming detail for Labour, in this survey, is not so much that 'the PN would win an election tomorrow'... even for the simple reason that: a) there isn't any election to- morrow; b) the survey results would probably be different, if there were; c) three-and-a-half years is a heck of a long time in politics. No, I'd say it's more that 'the PN would win an election, to- morrow'... even though the vast majority of Labour-voters, who are currently forsaking their own party in droves, are NOT actual- ly planning on voting PN, at all! As with our own, the Independ- ent surveys suggests that most of those disgruntled Labourites are still gravitating towards the burgeoning 'Party of Non-Vot- ers': which currently stands at around 17%. Effectively, this implies two things: one, that the National- ist Party's majority could easily grow to much more than a mere 1,500 votes, over the next four years... if only it could tap into that swelling bracket of disillu- sioned Labour voters [something it is unlikely to ever succeed in doing: if it carries on describing them all as 'evil, 'corrupt', 're- tarded', etc.] Two, that anywhere up to 40,000 former Labour voters are now so pissed off with their own party – their own PARTY, please note: not 'their own Prime Min- ister', who still enjoys their trust – that they would much rather not vote for anyone, at all. Now: if I were in Robert Abe- la's place, right now... that sort of revelation would worry me, a LOT. For one thing, because – unlike the case with Lawrence Gonzi – Robert Abela's own popularity is clearly no longer enough, to 'blind the party faith- ful' to the many flaws within his own administration (in other words: the 'RobertPL' strategy is no longer working; and needs to be changed.) But Abela has an even bigger problem on his hands. Let me put it this way: if such a mas- sive chunk of his party's support base is threatening not to vote Labour... and it's NOT because of any loss of trust, in himself as party leader.... ... then what the bleeding hell is even pissing all those Labour voters off, in the first place? Let's face it: in view of these findings... it cannot really be any of the 'usual suspects', like inflation, immigration, the envi- ronment, etc. Nor can it be any of the individual occurrences which have clearly dented Abe- la's popularity, in recent months (such as the Jean Paul Sofia saga: which had coincided with our earlier survey, last July). Because what sense could it possibly make, to hold the La- bour PARTY responsible for any of those issues... and not its lead- er: who dictates and directs the entire policy-vision, upon which both Labour Party, and Labour government, base all their ac- tions? I've already mentioned the Jean Paul Sofia inquiry, so I may as well use that as an example. Last weekend I interviewed former AD chairman (and Nationalist candidate) Michael Briguglio about the current political sit- uation... and this is one of the things he said: "I don't off-hand remember the exact sequence of events. But in the final instance, there seems to have been a crescendo: first Deborah Schembri; then Jason Micallef; then Joseph Muscat, no less... all saying that 'there should be a public inquiry'. And this left Robert Abela with no option, but to say 'Yes'." That broadly corresponds with my own memory, too. I also seem to remember how the vast bulk of public opprobrium, over that issue, had been directed overwhelmingly at Robert Abela himself. On two counts, please note: first, for displaying 'insen- sitivity' towards Sofia's grieving 'GonziPN' might have worked in 2008. But not 'RobertPL' in 2027... Raphael Vassallo Robert Abela