The results of the European Elections are drawing a clear picture for the current leaders of the Union. A mixed Eurosceptic vote has registered a substantial growth. I call it mixed eurosceptic because I too, like many others, find it hard to lump the messages being sent out by the Tspiras’ leftist eurosceptics in Greece, the Spanish left eurosceptics, Nigel Farage’s UKIP and Marine Le Pen’s Front National.
Most of these parties do have a common thread of anti-EU establishment of sorts. In their minds, the European project is not working and needs to change fast. Marine Le Pen managed to remove the racist image (at least image) that had held FN down for so long a time and this led her party to garner one fourth of the EU vote in France.
To these parties one has also to add the alarming rise of far-right movements – eurosceptic but in their own intolerant way. The neo-Nazis have won a seat in Germany, Jobbik is going strong in Hungary and across the continent such extreme rightist ideas have registered a surge that cannot be ignored. In Malta too, Normal Lowell’s Imperium almost pipped Alternattiva Demokratika to the third place in party vote counts.
From UKIP to Jobbik the votes are easily translatable to a message on a European dimension. They are not only a political but also a social and cultural message to the European project – they too are a response from the young European demos to the “elites” (or if you like “perceived elites”) in Europe. Also one has to bear in mind that the European average turnout has been weak, very weak, with Slovakia reaching a miserable 19% in turnout.
Did Malta fit into the general message sending on a European dimension? Can one ask Simon Busuttil to resign in the same manner as Nigel Clegg will be asked to do following the result? I strongly doubt it. To start off with my example, Nigel Clegg put his neck on the line for Europe. He insisted on discussing European matters and on facing off Mr Farage in public debates – risking all for the European message. The UK result spelled a huge defeat for the Liberal Democrat and there is a clear nexus to a European dimension of that defeat. Apart from insisting on the inclusion of a referendum on Europe, Farage rightly asked for Clegg’s head on a plate following his party’s remarkable result.
The problem with the Maltese vote is that there are little or no considerations of the European dimension and of what parties stand for in Europe. In this perspective Lowell’s Imperium and the eclectic Alleanza ghal Bidla stand out as the glaring exception – being the two parties that really went out on a European ticket with a sort of European agenda. The rest of the parties – even an unwilling Alternattiva Demokratika – were content to make this election a rerun extension of a general election.
Muscat’s Labour drummed up the core of the critical mass he had built to add on to the momentum of the landslide electoral victory a little more than a year ago. Seeing such a lovely opportunity fall on his lap Muscat could not resist using this election to browbeat his opponent to submission – what better than an opposition in disarray for a longer period? Was there any European message to be read in the Labour vote? Not really. Much rhetoric about being the best in Europe would turn out to seem even more frivolous when the results poured out with a resounding support for the king of eurosceptics in the Labour camp: Alfred Sant.
Blogging in inewsmalta this morning Sant concluded his post with a strong eurosceptic message about the possible failure of the European project (blaming the elites in the process). Neither did the line-up of Labour candidates augur well for any medicine to the euroscepticism. Labour remained at best cool about the whole idea of Europe. It was an inconvenient step that had to be taken in its stride of national political growth. The European project has not so much been accepted by Labour (no U-turn there) but rather pragmatically assimilated in its program of growth for the “movement”. It is a tool to be used at will to be able to play with the popularity figures back at home. And it’s working for now.
The PN could have had a strong base and message on a European level. It should have been relatively easy to boost past credentials within the European project. There were valiant efforts towards the end of the campaign to weave European values and meaning into the reasons for voting for their candidates. On the whole though the PN is still playing to the tune of the massive Labour machine where the campaign is concerned. It played into the hands of the “negativity” spin by trying to force their hand too early – and failed to consider that a huge chunk of the electorate is still voting emotionally (sadly a kind of vote that the PN itself had groomed all too often with campaigns based on “taste” and “guilt by association”).
So in the end the Maltese European vote strongly resembled a photo competition on Facebook. You know the kind right? It’s when you receive a message from a friend telling you that their daughter is currently enrolled in a competition for “The Girl Best Dressed as a Pumpkin” or when an acquaintance who plays in some rock band that you never heard of asks you to vote for his band so they can get some money being offered by some company to record an album.
Admit it. Most times you ignore the request but if you actually bother to go to the Facebook page and vote then your vote has nothing to do with assessing the qualities of the different baby pumpkin girls or bands taking part in the competition. Not really no. You are just voting out of some twisted sense of duty to your friend – at worst a sense of guilt and obligation.
You’ve seen it before time and time again. Given how the MEP campaign unfolded in Malta we had a very similar scenario. The two main parties ended up sending their “vote for me” request, practically asking their core to confirm their allegiance or obligation towards their basic party of choice. Muscat’s movement worked wonders for this purpose. Busuttil has not had enough time nor a good enough performance until now to convince those who deserted the PN ship a year ago.
In the end the Maltese MEP vote was largely based on allegiances to ideas that were shaped in the 2013 national elections. There is little that is European in the Maltese vote – no message for the elites in Europe much to the chagrin of Alfred Sant and his 50,000+ voters. 10 years into European membership and we are still very much an island adrift from the general currents and issues that are at play in Europe
