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MaltaToday 4 June 2017

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maltatoday, SUNDAY, 4 JUNE 2017 24 Letters It was never a good idea to base this election on 'belief' I 'm writing this on Friday, which is the so called 'day of silence and reflection'. It hasn't been particularly silent so far; and judging by the noise, very few people are doing any 'reflecting'. That is probably just as well, as thinking too much about the situation our country is now in can – and almost certainly will – lead to depression. Some of you might take that as an indirect comment about the result of this election. That's not the case at all. For one thing, I do not possess any prophetic powers (unlike both Joseph Muscat and Simon Busuttil, it seems; who, in Wednesday's debate, predicted not only the result, but also the outcomes of at least three magisterial inquiries.) For another, I happen to think that the election result will almost instantly become irrelevant. There are still the inquiries going on in the background, remember? If even one returns a verdict that contradicts the version of the winning party... Sunday's carcades may well mark the beginning of the shortest governmental stint in Maltese political history. Nonetheless, I can read electoral signs when I see them. Our closing poll this week suggests that Labour will win by anywhere between 10-20,000 votes. After five weeks showing a constant Labour majority hovering around the 4% mark, the last survey actually showed Labour's lead climbing to almost 5%... and, much more significantly (given the nature of this campaign), with Muscat still enjoying a very clear lead over Busuttil in the trust ratings. Naturally, there is a limit to how much you can extrapolate from these statistics. Our polls have been accurate in predicting election results in the past; they were conspicuously less accurate when it came to single-issue referendums, such as the one on spring hunting. Perhaps unsurprisingly, many hopeful Nationalists now point towards that blip to suggest that we may be off the mark here, too. And to be fair, it is a valid argument. From day one, this election has felt like a single-issue referendum. There was a concerted effort to turn it into a referendum specifically on the issue of whether Joseph Muscat is guilty of corruption as charged. Nearly all the comments I have seen from Nationalist quarters have reinforced this point: a vote for Labour, they said, is a vote for corruption. This is not about policies (!), but about principles. If you don't vote PN, you're either 'stupid', 'mad' or 'corrupt'; etc. etc… At every turn, the message was that the ordinary electoral rules of engagement were off; everybody was meant to drop everything, stop focusing on any of their usual electoral bugbears, and to base their vote uniquely on one issue, and one issue only. This raises the first of many serious anomalies about this election campaign. Sorry, folks, but no. This was never 'a referendum'. It was never about any one single issue, still less an issue decided for us by only one side of the political divide. This was (and still is) an election to choose a government. And there is a world of difference between those two scenarios. Perhaps we should rewind to the very beginning. Joseph Muscat, if you'll remember, started his term with a 36,000 vote majority. That advantage did not come from nowhere. People trusted and believed Muscat in record numbers just four short years ago. And it wasn't just because of things like political charisma, gift of the gab, gimmicky podium antics, etc. It was also in part because of a near-total collapse in the PN's own confidence rankings from 2011 onwards. It is not entirely correct to say that Muscat won the 2013 election by 36,000 votes. It was also lost by that margin by a Nationalist Party that almost visibly fell apart at the seams. I will be criticised for saying this – gee, what's new? – but the PN has simply never accepted that reality. Even the fact that they appointed Simon Busuttil as leader, after he had only just fronted a campaign that was rejected by an unprecedented majority... it all points towards a state of denial. The real message from the electorate in 2013 was never taken on board. Another thing about the trust ratings. MaltaToday did not start measuring the credibility factors of politicians five weeks ago. For years now we have been running a regular 'rate the minister' survey. I will not be revealing Raphael Vassallo The power of belief: this voter's placard berates the Labour voter who trusts Joseph Muscat

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