J’accuse is on a holiday stint thanks to the Duke of Luxembourg and the Luxembourg national day. We got an extra long weekend off and that meant that the travel bug was reignited. Barcelona, home to Gaudi and Messi, has been selected thanks to its gaudicious combination of shopping, culture and beaches. If you are wondering why your favourite blogger/columnist has gone AWOL then the fiery Catalan city is your answer.
I had only just landed and got into the taxi when I was asked where I was from. Upon hearing the answer, the taxi driver launched into a series of sighs: Ah!Malta, futebol, twelve one.” Some myths never die, though I must say that I had to put up a patriotic fight against anobstinate taxi driver who seemed convinced that nations with a small populations should not participate on the next EU stage. It’s people like him too who will be voting come next MEP elections. Meanwhile, in the Barrio Gotic, the Indian who sold me the Barca polo shirt between a “my friend”,”good price” and a “look nice” had no idea that his home country had just voted the Congress Party back into government.
The weather is great, my credit card feels threatened and I just got confirmation that my flight for voting (referred to nicely as “cheap flight” in the press) is a.o.k. Here’s the current polls for J’accuse’s votes:
1. Alternattiva Demokratika- nothwithstanding the gaffes.The vote to AD still goes on the basis of the need for representation of Maltese interests in a third formation. Arnold seems unfortunately destined to go Harry’s way and play the polls wrongly. The recent “scientific poll” gaffe is inexcusable- either mention the poll or go the PLPN way. J’accuse number one for AD, unfortunately, still translates to an “insufficente” to the whole political system. And I am not gleeful about it.
2. Labour – surprising as it is and as absolutely unEuropean as they still sound as a whole this number 2 vote is also based on best interests for Malta. The reasoning is this: they will probably get three seats anyway-might as well try to get your say in who among the bunch of Damascean converts could least embarass you. That should be someone in the mould of Louis Grech. Proper button pushing is an option. The definitely not list includes – Sharon Ellul Bonici, Glenn Bedingfield, Christian Zammit (nice try though), and Claudette Abela Baldacchino. The don’t even consider list includes Joseph Cuschieri,John Attard Montaltoand Kyrill Micallef Stafrace. The WTF?list includes Maria Camilleri.Yep. It boils down to Louis Grechand Edward Scicluna… and as the saying goes… better the devil you know. So it’s Louis again.
3. Nationalist – They thoroughly deserve a drubbing for letting their political side goto the pits, for the deceptive propaganda and the ridiculous selection of non-candidates the same reasoning applies. Choose the candidate that can do least damage. SimonSays Busuttil still sticks out, though if you go by the polls he is a surefire bet anyway. Why not go for the second best in order to have your say in the possible second seat the Nats could get away with? Help rule out Vince Farrugia, David Casa, Roberta Metsola TT, Marthese and Frank Portelli et al. My personal choice would be Edward Demicoli. A good second bet if there was one.
There you are. “Era meglio morire da piccoli…” as the song by satirist Paolo Rossi goes,but if you really have to dive into this “schifo di merda” it’s “turiamoci il naso” time in the smallest democracy in the EUand here are the votesof the J’accuse jury:
1. Arnold Cassola (12 points)
2. Louis Grech (10 points)
3. Edward Demicoli (8 points)
How about a facebook group to promote the three-way representation vote?
18 replies on “Estoy en Barcelona”
Why the quality control for PN but not Labour? Doesn’t it make just as much sense to say that Labour’s dire choice of candidates makes them undeserving of a landslide victory? (and let’s be fair, the PN lot might not be great luminaries but at least they’re not embarrassing) I’d actually think it makes more sense to keep Labour in check given that they can be as mediocre as they like and still win the next general election by default. And isn’t Labour at least equally guilty of deceptive propaganda?
What say you on PL’s Marlene Mizzi? No listing for her?
I like the way you’ve set out the threeway, though.
A thought provoking and intersting piece from Jacques, as usual (no, I don’t need anything).
While I agree that Louis Grech and Edward Scicluna are easily the best in the PL stable, I’m not sure I agree with the rest of your assessment.
For example why “definitly not”, in the case of Claudette Abela Baldacchino? She strikes me as a hard-working, capable person with the capacity to learn and learn fast.
And, although I don’t know very much about Christian Zammit, I was very favourably impressed by his short interview on The Times website. And he is young yet.
PS: Did you get the irony of Justin BB referring to “Labour’s dire choice of candidates” when he obviously supports the party that has Vince Farrugia as a candidate? Priceless.
Yes Ettore, if I think that Labour is ridiculously stupid I must be a hardline Nationalist. No rational person could come to that conclusion could they?
First of all I didn’t mention the word hardline.
Secondly no, no rational person would conclude that “labour is stupid” just on the basis of their candidate list which is actually, in my opnion, quite a good mix taking into considetion all the imperatives that will effect the election.
Oh no Ettore – it is not only on the basis of the candidate list that I think that Labour is ridiculously stupid.
And no I am not a Nationalist (hardline or otherwise), or anything else for that matter. Is it beyond the realm of your imagination that I might simply be somebody who is utterly unimpressed by Labour?
And by the way, are you really impressed by Christian Zammit, the boy who after much waffle and churning of limited knowledge could only come up with departure tax as an achievement of the EP (it had very little at all to do with the EP)?
JBB: What you say makes sense. The thing is that even as a group of individuals external to the bipartisan system there is not much you can do. At most you can hope to influence enough support to get more and more people to vote for the least damaging candidates in each category.
The PN spin against Cassola is mostly based on the fact that he is too ambitious (like Harry before him). AD can get irritating with their claims for four seats/scientific polls but at the end of the day on green votes that matters they would be a useful input to an important EP formation.
The Labour set-up is sinful. Notas sinful as the Daphne inspired PN ads that appear today in the Times (i’ve got a rare print copy thanks to my bro visiting Barca). What you can try to do is get the lesser evil elected even in this case.
As for PN.Well, my reasoning also counts on the fact that there is always a core that will vote SimonSays safely in…so if you need to influence that particular corner of the EP vote try to influence who gets in as second least evil.
I’m off to look for lobster in Balzunetta…
I think this image of Malta acquiring its advocate in the European Green Party (EGP) by electing a Green MEP (or any other political formation, for that matter) should be scrutinised.
Five years ago we missed an opportunity because we were too engrossed over “smearing by abortion” when the conclusion we should have drawn was simple: if the Maltese anti-abortion Secretary-General of the EGP cannot sway the EGP on the issue of abortion then, a fortiori, will a Maltese Green MEP fail to do the same.
The Maltese Greens skillfully defused that. And the usual crowd who fears a “religio et patria” Nationalist Party could not see further than the word “abortion” when this was clearly not the issue here. The matter was the leverage the Maltese Greens have with the European counterparts.
It should have come up over other matters. Working time? The issue has been around for a long time … even before Cassola was EGP Secretary General. As far as I know Cassola supports the status quo (which, for those of you who fear the “religion et patria” Nationalist Party is “work as much as you like as long as not on the Lord’s day”).
Now hands up anyone who thinks that with Cassola MEP he’ll manage to sway the rest of the EGP MEPs on the matter. Parties like the PPE, the PES and ALDE hold together mostly for historical reasons, others like ID are held together by the single issue of relations with the EU. The EGP and the United Left are far more homogeneous and disciplined as far as ideology and policy goes.
That an MEP could sway colleagues in the first category of parties rather than the second should be obvious.
Working time, by the way, was defeated and the status quo retained. And that was not thanks to the EGP.
@Fausto: Even if I were to agree with the difficulties Arnold would face in convincing the GreensI cannot agree that it is obvious that Simon could sway PPE to his side. Why should a grouping that has less ideological common points and only holds together for historical reasons be more easy to sway together. If there are few ideological ties then the opposite would hold good (less easy to sway).
In any case.The fact that it is more difficult for Arnold to sway the greens is still better than it being impossible to do so with no representation. It is just as difficult for Louis, Simon and Arnold to sway their respective groupings. At least all of them would be trying.
GO VOTE, CROSS VOTE!!!
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=84382191111
Hi jacques, thanks for your endorsement!!! Although obviously I do not agree on the order of preference!! I sincerely cannot understand how PL figures in your list above PN. This is europe we are talking about. Their credibility on this issue is zilch, nada, Even amongst their own group the PL guys have not managed to influence a single vote in favour of our country. insomma il-baqra kollha trid tinbiegh!!!! Enjoy your lobster in Barca!!
Afterthought on this whole voting strategy business. It might make more sense to place 1, 2 and 3 near the names of the candidates in reverse order of how many first count votes they are likely to get from other people. So, in your example let’s assume for the sake of the argument that Louis Grech will get a big chunk of 1st count votes, Edward Demicoli a bit less, and Cassola a bit less than Demicoli. In that case, vote 1. AC, 2. ED, 3. LG. Reason being that if you give LG the first vote it will just stick to him until he is elected/elminated towards the very end of the process when AC and ED might already be out of the game.
Jacques
That’s when the numbers argument kicks in. Busuttil only has to sway parts of the PPE to make up for whatever voting strength the EGP can muster in Parliament.
But that’s not the only point. Busuttil is more in sync with the PPE that Cassola can ever be with the EGP on which there is consensus.
For example, on working time there’s a general consensus in Malta on retaining the status quo. I can see Busuttil selling that to a number of EPP colleagues as unnecessary state enroachment and control.
How would Cassola? Last time I heard him on the subject he was saying that in Malta high incomes from overtime could be necessary because of what he claims are low salaries. Do you see Cohn-Bendit slapping Cassola on the back and saying “Sure Arnold, money is more important than health and safety”?
@Justin BB
Apart from the fact that the assumption you mention is more of a guess (unless you know from polling that Grech will get more than Demicoli and Demicoli more than Cassola), there is another assumption you are making without noticing.
Let’s say that Busuttil will be elected from the first count with a huge surplus while votes for the Labour candidates is more evenly balanced. Demicoli could hypothetically “inherit” enough of that surplus in such a way that in the second count he could overtake a Labour candidate (such as Grech) who was ahead of him in the first count.
As you can see the “tactical” voting you propose is based on very flimsy assumptions.
Fausto, of course it’s more complicated than I was saying. All that I meant to convey was that if one is trying to play the system then one should avoid getting their vote stuck in the wrong place. And it’s more complicated than anything either of us has gotten into here, but let’s leave that discussion to a week night.
Greetings from the Hotel Minsk, in Europe’s ‘last dictatorship’. This was a no-newspaper, no-internet week (even Belrus Today is very hard to find). Man, has it been peaceful. No press releases from Big Egos and Arani Mas. No shameless U-turnistas to contend with. No bandwagonistas’ articles to plough through in the lunch break. The absence of that fake urgency that life and all that’s good depends on the outcome of the forthcoming elections. In other words, a total absence of much of the schifo you hint at above…I’ve got a few ideas why these elections have brought out the schifo element so loud and clear. Will try to develop my thoughts in due course.
Hasta la Victoria del Barca (was there when they inflicted that humiliating defeat on the Galacticos)
DF
There seems to b a comment under my name which I did not make. Os that possible?
I see that Mr Demicoli is follwing his party’s line faithfully – “don’t say how good we are, say how bad the other lot are”.
And then they say that the PL is negative.