Fever Pitch

Last minute pitches from the last minute candidates. The pitch is high now that we enter the last two days of election fever. Is it really fever? Are the polls right in saying many people will opt to stay home? Will they venture out of their homes and caravans to vote on the day anyway? Is Joseph Muscat’s Labour Crew heading for the protest victory that will fuel the illusion that PL is now a winning machine (again)?

More directly. Are the people who count still easily convinced by the Nationalist pitches? Are there any people who count? Isn’t it more “one for all and all for one” and there is no place for the swingers? Or are the swingers really determining the fifth seat? In that case will they opt for the shaky Cassola option or will they prefer beach to polling booth?

I must admit that the Milan -Liverpool 3-3 Champion’s League debacle provided tenser entertainment. On the other hand we are already drawing possible valuable lessons. The nationalists at Stamperija are becoming as paranoid as Joseph’s accolytes. Their gagging order on candidates was proof if we ever needed any. The labour crew are still as disillusioned that they have brought off the necessary change as ever. The greens still do not plug the only line that could give them a breakthrough.

Meanwhile come Saturday we will be voting to elect our representatives in Parliament. We might want someone who can act as a reasonable conscience for our government – checking its faux pas before the Commission steps in and pushing its cause within their formation. Able candidates are needed. Yes-men (and women) are definitely off the list.

Does it really take guts to be able to veer away from the norm and vote intelligently with your interests at heart? We’ll know this Saturday.

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Elsewhere on the net:

Salvu Balzan known affectionately on this site as Hogan and his Heroes has returned to daily blogging at Maltatoday.

Daphne Caruana Galizia rightly probes into the inability of Joseph’s Labour to prioritise expenses and compartmentalise public expenses on the one hand and those that should be borne by the candidate/party on the other. Funnily for such an opinionist easily offended by such calculating gaffes at the expense of the people no mention is made of the glaringly obvious gaffe chez Simon Busuttil’s transparent and accountable team. It’s all over the papers but not worth a teeny weent spoof on the Malta’s most visited Gossip Blog (then again she could claim it’s boring and not interesting to write about).

And for something completely different, Thermidor’s gone ballistic for the last week. In between justifying PN’s pitch on votes for illegal immigrants, linguistic dissertations on plagiarism and other things possible Fausto shows us that the only thing that can turn him green is J’accuse… but it’s not political hue that we are talking about.