Category: Campaign 2013

Categories
Campaign 2013

Għid Banana

Biċċa xogħol ħelwa ta’ Cedric Vella. Qed intellagħha hawn fuq pjattaforma li qalgħet daqqa sew minħabba l-popolarita u populiżmu popolari ta’ facebook. Iva konna kwieti. Saħansitra nirċievu posta mingħand facebook u wordpress jistaqsuna għala ma tellajna xejn f’din l-aħħar ġimgħa. Tinkwetawx – mhux li inkwetati. Għadna hawn. Qed nagħmlu ftit reset kemm personali kif ukoll ‘professjonali’ fil-qasam tal-blogs.

Cedric għamel pastiche. Samples ħelwin li ma huma mużikali xejn pero xorta jirnexxilhom idewwquna t-togħma qarsa tal-massa politika maltija. Dik li għandna u dik li se nkomplu nitwekkew biha. Kif qed jitkellem dwar politika J’accuse? Tafu intom. Il-kazz mhux opinjoni u riflessjoni soċjali mhux neċessarjament politika. Issa li wara biss ġimaghtejn gvern effettiv u mingħajr ebda miżura ġdida sparixxew il-kjujiet fil-Casualty Mater Dei ikollok tibda taħseb li soċjalment kollox qed isir possibli. Jekk il-ħalba xita li jmiss ma jfurx il-wied tafu lill min għandkom tirringrazzjaw. U jekk ma tafux ifakkrukom b’xi press release.

Sadattant is-Sebħ ta’ Malta ġdida qed ngħixuh b’forom ġodda ta’ attentati ta’ ċensura mentali. Issa jekk tikkritika ifisser li inti frustrat, għajjur u ma fhimtx il-messaġġ. Ifisser li Malta ma hix tiegħek ukoll u ħaqqek l-għadab ta’ dawk li għadhom qed jistħu biss minn ġewwa ta’ kemm belgħuha sal-gerżuma.

Din ma hix politika sieħbi. Dan post dwar il-ħajja. Ceci n’est pas une pipe. 

Mela ħudu dan il-memento vivi tal-politika maltija bi pjaċir. U ippermettuli infakkarkom li s-satira vera li ma tbiegħx ruħha għada ħajja fir-Repubblika tal-Banana (paġna facebook) u li sakemm jasal żmien iktar bnazzi J’accuse qiegħed jirrikmandalkom blog politiku mniedi minn fatat f-kemmuna (Comino Republic / ukoll fuq facebook). Moreh nebhukin… u ifmuh.

U fejn ma tafux u ma tifhmux… għidu banana.

Categories
Campaign 2013

The Courage to Vote – voting AD

The last post is always the one about which way the J’accuse vote will go. This time round it is not that hard to guess given this blogs declaration of its preference early in the campaign. It’s not simply about declaring one’s voting preference though. The reasoning behind the vote is just as important as the vote itself-  particularly when we are in the phase of the election when the vilification of the “wasted vote” reaches its peak. In my discussions with like minded voters I have always stressed that if the third party was to attract votes it would have to be clear, honest and up-front about its motives and its reasons.

Yes it is true, you have only one vote. It is a huge responsibility and you are meant to use it not egoistically or on the basis of grievances that are mostly personal by nature. A responsible vote is one that is made when fully conscious of the consequences of that vote, of what it entails and what one hopes to achieve with it. So here is the reasoning that leads me, and I hope will lead other like minded voters, to vote for alternattiva demokratika.

The Wasted Vote

To begin with you have to be aware of the investment that you are making when using your vote. Yes, they are right when they try to scare you and warn you that your vote risks being wasted. The “waste” is in terms of being a determining factor of which party will govern the nation for the next five years. True there is a sight chance that the third party gets to form a coalition in government. We’ll come back to that later but the truth is that the odds are stacked highly against this happening. It is the existence of these very odds that makes me stop considering my vote wasted. If I want change from this winner-takes-all mentality I have to set the ball rolling. The main parties will not do that for me. They have proven time and again that their promises of electoral reform are a lie.

They blatantly disregard the basic rules that are supposed to level the playing field, they engage in gerrymandering and abuse of the very rules in order to scare you away from voting for an alternative. The first reason to vote AD is to mark a positive step and add to the critical mass that will one day drive a wedge into the winner-takes-all mentality. The first reason to vote AD is to show that nobody owns your vote and that by exercising your democratic right to choose the party you want you are not wasting your vote. That is why the number 1s will be more effective.

Risk vs Returns

So the AD voter is running a higher risk. He is sacrificing the possibility of choosing the lesser of what he considers two evils in order to make a positive statement in favour of more proportional representation and in order to break the dichotomy. What returns can he expect?

In the first instance the achievement of a critical mass could mean that finally a third party is represented in parliament. Irrespectively of whether it is a government-forming coalition or a party that forms part of an opposition this achievement would in itself signify a very positive return on the risk. An AD MP means more scrutiny of parliamentary affairs, it also means positive action with the possibility of proposing bills in parliament, participating in parliamentary committees and transforming the black and white dialogue into constructive debate. It would also mean a sucker punch at the heart of the complacent parties who have long settled in the race to the bottom – safe in the assumption that the system of eternal alternation guarantees them a part of the pie.

At a second level an AD that is in a position to reach compromises with the main parties on matters of governance means influencing the populist rhetoric that wins the mainstream party votes with real and concrete commitments in the field of environment and civil rights. Both parties have tried to label AD as being part of the “other”. It’s inevitable because they see every vote for AD as a vote of theirs that is lost to the other side. Do not fall for their trap. AD has no pre-written preference. AD is not the PL or PN in disguise. It has proven to be a party fully capable of coming up with concrete policies and proposals that rise above partisan interests.

Number 1

The hesitant voter is the one that is currently contemplating whether it is worth investing in this new wave – the green spring. The odds are stacked against the party. His original party of choice has drummed the wasted vote argument in his head. The fear of the other side winning is coupled with the false rumours that abuse of your ignorance. A Daphne would attempt to equate Michael Briguglio with communism for having written against the Cuban Embargo – do voters know that the nationalist government was on Mike Briguglio’s side? Does that make GonziPN a commie government? A Labourite would claim that Muscat’s wave of change is the change that is needed. The temptation for many to simply vote Muscat for change’s sake is sad. It betrays a lack of clarity and a readiness to be sweet-talked on the basis of some anger at the nationalist establishment.

It takes courage to vote AD. There’s no denying that. It is the courage of opting to go against the current, of thinking different, of recognising the difficult odds and yet persisting in driving home the final straw that might begin to break the system. Voting AD is not for the weak, for the easily offended or for the easily convinced. It is a responsibility that must be borne with care because it is a responsibility that could effect future generations. As an enlightened young columnist once said – we must not simply think in the short term but we must think for future generations. Do we want them to experience this race to the bottom politics or are we prepared to give them a chance to see a new dawn, a new page in our history.

Voting for AD is not for the faint hearted. Third party voters are those that really want to stand up and be counted. They are those who are unaffected by the fear campaigns and scare mongering. They are the ones who are prepared to give a chance to thinking different about a future nation that is everybody’s true, but that is based on reason and reality not on populist rhetoric.

On Saturday, if you are strong willed enough and if you believe in change give your first preference to AD before moving along the ballot sheet. If you still cannot shed the habit of alternation you couldn’t do worse than giving AD your second preference after choosing your government party of choice – but be warned, that vote is not half as effective.

AD stands for open democracy, open society and open politics. With AD there are no deals with interest groups or business interests. Ad has no endorsements from foreign politicians, footballers or clowns. The only endorsement AD is seeking is yours. In return AD pledges to be honest and clear with you.

Because with AD you know where you stand.

Categories
Campaign 2013

The Road to Castille #1 : The marketing

It began with a bang. As the contestants unveiled their mutual electoral colours we could tell from the get go that this would be a campaign heavily dependent on the marketing. Malta Taghna Lkoll and Futur fis-Sod relied heavily on not being one colour, on not being monotone. Here was the visual realisation of what the parties had already attempted 5 years back – being something for everybody. The PN’s MSN clone segued from Blue to Green to Yellow to Red with ease while Labour’s naïf collage spoke of “everybody” – or rather “us” a distinction that would later bear on the message.

The fanfare and explosion of colours was blinding and the inspiration from across the Atlantic could be seen from the start. Our political leaders will continue to be Obamafied until a new source of inspiration comes along. The mychoice.pn site was stuck in a mental masturbation for anything Obama-ish with the banners and the ribbons and retro fonts unabashedly cloned from the Democrat intitiatives. Labour was not to be outdone in that department. More heavily funded this time round, Muscat’s party did it’s utmost to get the feel of the “Change” wave that Obama had created the first time round. The videos and the “Taghna Lkoll” mantra seemed to do the trick as well as those very impersonal and trumped up photos with people holding little placards as though we all go through life holding pieces of cardboard in our hand.

The main parties steamrollered over personal data protection rights. Nothing is new there. The PL and PN operate under the assumption that the world needs them to exist and that the rules are only there in case things go out of hand but otherwise they are swept under the carpet during a campaign. Incidentally yes it is PLPN – the Labour party might have spent the larger part of the last 25 years in power but it never ever challenges the status quo with regards to the rules of the game. Labour does not seek change from the PLPN system, it simply seeks more frequent alternation within the PLPN system. It’s not an obsession of mine, it’s the sad truth.

The campaigns are best characterised as a bombardment of half formed lies (it’s like a half-truth but with less substance) that land sporadically and indiscriminately on the acolytes and the unconvinced alike. They’ll tell you that their party organised your flight home to vote – giving you the impression that you owe the PN or PL your life. They won’t tell you that this is taxpayers’ money being used to satisfy their control freak mechanisms and that all the while the data of the couple of thousand using the flight is controlled by both parties in full and blatant violation of data protection laws.

You will receive an Amazon-forestful of propaganda in your letterbox from the two parties who claim to have put the environment at the heart of their policies. As Caroline Muscat documented well enough in “A threat to electoral integrity” it is blatantly obvious that both parties operate with a much higher budget than would be allowed by law. I have to highlight that because the extent of the importance of this statement rarely hits home. The PL and the PN operate ILLEGALLY every election. They overspend in blatant disregard to the rules of the game. They will tell you that it is because the rules are outdated – and that somehow gives them a god-given right to ride roughshod over the rules of the land. Would AD be able to state that the rules of representation are outdated? Tough chance.

The hype about manifestos (or electoral programmes if you’re into this latest technical distinction) came and went as stealthily as ever. From the early rumblings when Konrad Mizzi was still a real person and not a figment of our imagination we thought that the main highlights of the manifestos would be discussed in depth and torn apart or elevated to Nobel prize material depending on the party proposing. This soon evaporated into uselessness after the “tablets for all” farce that risked showing the true colours of the PLPN manifestos – an auction in a supermarket, buying votes with promises tailor made on the spot. After the tablets we heard little or nothing of the content of the party’s promises as stage two of the marketing campaign required a concentration on scandals.

The dark side of the PLPN system came out in full force here. The inevitable weak points of corruption and connivance with the darker side of society would be painted into the tableau in accordance to a party’s needs. Thus the PL would do its damnedest to link a real ring of corruption in oil procurement to a tenuous connection with the minister concerned. Reality – the existence of corruption in various sectors of our PLPN patronised system (from Maritime permits, to driving permits, to VAT inspections, to oil procurement, to environment decision) – was being hyped for electoral purposes. The PN fought back with undercover tapes and recordings that would only end up exposing another side of the PLPN – their network of kazini  as a useless relic of politics past now in the hands of little entrepreneurs who would turn a blind eye to illicit methods of making a quick buck.

The warts and all phase would simmer down when the yelling was over with no real victor and a deeper entrenchment by the two sides was confirmed. At this stage the parties would morph into some sort of religious Messianic cult sect.

Muscat’s Taghna Lkoll would pull the non-divisive rabbit out of the hat and this would turn out to be a surprisingly catchy concept. The hordes of flag-waving tribal acolytes would suddenly adopt a questionable neutered approach of “Love thy neighbour” complete with a full revisionist approach towards history. History need not be made when it is being re-written and Labour is banking heavily on being the proverbial victor that rewrites history (at least for a while). It is a re-legitimation of the stigmatised “Labourite” that is so appealing for the hardcore while at the same time sterile enough for the doubting thomas to actually contemplate the vote. At this point actual tangible plans become useless – replaced conveniently with buzzwords such as “costings, roadmap and injections” that make the speaker sound deceivingly competent.

Gonzi’s reaction to all this has been the calling of the troops. His Gozo mass meeting speech also drew upon history. Not history with a big “H” but rather the historical personalities of the nationalist party. His was not to deal with the recycling of Eddie’s “reconciliation” as Muscat seemed to be doing. No. Gonzi, preceded by a catch-phrase generating Simon (Gas daaaawn gooool-haaaajt! – seriously?) would call upon the spirits (dead or alive) of the giants of Nationalist history and then would rightfully move on to list tangible achievements. No need for rewriting there but a legitimate claim of the success – a give credit where credit is due of sorts. Which is the closest we got to talking about actual stuff and not the pie in the sky sweeping statements of the Muscat kind. It would be a mixture of nationalist (as in the party) pride peppered with little hints of remorse for the arrogance that seems to have miffed so many. Then like the Moonies and the Jehovah Witnesses Gonzi would send his masses out to proselytise – convince two other people to vote PN. Still it’s always better than Simon’s grocer idea.

In the end the campaigns ended up doing just what was expected of them. To raise the ante on noise, colour and special effects in order to hide the unshamefaced prostitution of values for the sake of votes. In this latter category I believe that Muscat’s bandwagon of opportunism wins the game hands down. His last minute deal with the hunting community (where he promised nothing more than what the nationalist government already provides – observation of EU rules) was the final cherry of the cake after much flirting with his ghettoised concept of society – from women to LGBT to businessmen to workers to students. To each a promise without actually showing how the money will be brought home.

Gonzi’s team seemed to be a mix of desperation and anger. You cannot blame them – whatever is said they have been the “bahrin tal-maltemp” that Gonzi describes. Their fault mainly lies in  obstinately persisting in playing the same game within the rules of the PLPN system and this will undo their government in the end. They can blame the voter they can blame those who will move on to the hope being given by a third party but the truth is that Gonzi’s PN’s greatest mistake is that of playing along with PL when it comes to the wider rules that mold our institutional and societal structures. The greasy poles, the career ladders, the inevitable cronyism, the tribal approach, the winner takes all mentality, the divine right to govern with a majority without listening to anyone else – that is what will undo this government. No amount of marketing could avoid that.

Sadly another party is rearing to take its place under the great rules of PLPN alternation and the campaign has only proven to us that it will be more of the same. If not worse. Once the mask of unity and taghna lkoll falls the impact will be terrible.

We’d like to say we told you. But it would be as useful as our vote.

Categories
Campaign 2013

Dogs of War (DeLorean Unveiled)

They say that a week is a long time in politics. In that case twenty years must seem like an eternity. Churchill is often attributed the quote “Show me a young Conservative and I’ll show you someone with no heart, show me an old Liberal and I’ll show you someone with no brains.” Time and experience changes people. Under normal circumstances and outside the partisan fog of war it is considered normal to weigh your options every time an election comes around. Of course your own political preferences and outlook might give you an automatic preference towards one party or another but there is no shame in changing.

It’s not change for change’s sake that I am talking about though. That’s plain stupid. Sadly many voters will be voting for change for change’s sake next Saturday and, yes, I do think that it is plain stupid to do so. What I am referring to is the possibility of having evolving politics and ideas, of having the opportunity to compare parties who in turn have evolved their ideas and projects. That is important for a healthy representative democracy. That voters get to choose between parties healthily vying for their trust by proposing good plans for the nation, its citizens, their rights – that is healthy.

For a long time this blog has advocated the idea that our bipartisan system is geared to becoming a race to the bottom. It is a race to mediocrity that promotes populism, contradictory promises to everyone and everything and – because of the inevitable entrenchment of a political elite – it weaves an intricate web of inter-dependent interests that are conducive to corruption. In short the PLPN method sanctioned and strengthened by the constitutional amendments that kicked off with a Government White Paper in 1990 is wrought in such a way as to kill off (or greatly minimise) any terzo incomodo and strengthen the stranglehold of the bipartisan duality.

The combination of a series of amendments since 1987 (1987, 1996, 2007) to the sections of the constitution has continued to strengthen the PL and PN positions to the detriment of a possible third party. This has been one of the main criticisms directed from this blog – particularly at the phenomenon called “The Wasted Vote” that ends up killing all hope for potential third party voters on the eve of elections. It’s simple really – the PL or PN spinmasters wait till the last moment and then shoot the “you’re wasting your vote” argument : from Austin Bencini’s traditional “constitutional” article to Daphne Caruana Galizia’s “setting yourselves up as objects of hate”. It’s the death knell for AD.

Back in 1991 when the proposed amendments were still under discussion we had one particular columnist who got rather hot under the collar about these changes. In an impeccably written article the columnist presciently summarised all that was wrong with the system and even managed to predict one of the inherent dangers of the system. I copied out the second half of the article yesterday as a guest post under the name DeLorean (smart geeks among you will have recognised the car from Back to the Future). You can see the full article here in “Voting like it’s 1992” – actually it’s the second half of the original article, the first half was full of not so kind descriptions of Austin Gatt and Eddie Fenech Adami.

The whole philosophy of the importance of electing a third party to government is encapsulated in the second half of this article under the subtitle “The Argument”. Gems of thought such as the importance of representation over and above governability leap at you conspicuously. The article includes a prescient worry:

What if we find ourselves, in 20 years’ time with the choice of two absolutely disreputable political parties? What if the Nationalist Party disintegrates into the kind of sagging, soggy, useless mess of the Sixties… a heap that gave rise to the joke “Tgħajjatx għax tqajjem il-gvern!”? What is a traditionally Nationalist supporter supposed to do… vote for the Labour Party, vote for a mess, or not vote at all?

20 years from 1991 … that’s just two years off the mark, yet it is still so very tangibly relevant. The complaint by the author is clear – are we to end up with a Hobson’s Choice? A gun against our head? Are we to end up being blackmailed with the haunting idea of the “wasted vote”? A Daniel I say, a Daniel.

Most intriguingly one of the most telling paragraphs remains the following – and this mainly because of the author’s subsequent metamorphosis and absorption into part of the Leviathan that is so aptly described:

Third parties cannot be created out of nothing. They must grow, and their growth must be spawned by a real need within the people. Even if this need exists – and there is no doubt at all, it does – all growth will be warped by Malta’s all-pervasive fear and ignorance, which has effects similar to that of radiation on a growing foetus. Through this fear and ignorance, the Nationalist Party and the Labour Party survive, thrive and continue to grow.

Fear and ignorance. We were so close weren’t we? Fear and loathing we described it, plus an incredible propensity to abuse of ignorance. 20 years down the line and we have observed a campaign imbued with fear and thriving on ignorance and misinformation. Half truths are mixed with political assassination of the cruellest kind and yet even when you work out your sums and eliminate the two possibilities – the two podgy kids on the see-saw – you find out that your remaining hope has been nipped in the bud. Yep. the wasted vote argument. Not only that. The moment you boldly announce that you are determined to be represented because governance is not the be all and end all, because representation is just as important – that is when the dogs of war are unleashed.

Which is where the sweet irony hits home. Yes. It is time to reveal who DeLorean, writing with so much passion against the death knell that was writ into our constitution two decades ago is. Well it is none less than Daphne Caruana Galizia – the passionate put-downer of the third party, currently engaged in a character assassination of Michael Briguglio (last time round it was Dirty Harry) through a mixture of half-truths and the usual dose of “wasted vote stupids”.

As I said in the beginning, there is nothing wrong with change in a person. Daphne has already commented on this article this week : “Probably filed with the article describing Eddie Fenech Adami as a villager lawyer in a folder called ‘Mistakes I made at 25’. There are a lot of them. Fortunately, I had the good sense not to persist in error.” (it was actually the same article but she has to feign that it is not important so she would not remember would she). Probably the folder of “Mistakes I made at 45” includes backing JPO to the hilt in the 2008 election and actually voting him number 1.

People change. Daphne has every right to change her opinion about what makes the country tick. It makes you wonder what the motivation of this change is though. From a passionate advocate for third party systems to a staunch defender of the PLPN dichotomy.  I do hope this is not considered “calling names by the AD crowd”. It is sad though to see the transition from what was evidently a motivated young liberal to a dog of war baying for Briguglio’s head – and why? Because voting Ad will get you Labour according to Daphne. But Daphne…

Alternattiva is not the crux of the problem. The hypothetical small party is. Many people might disapprove of Alternattiva, but they should not be so shortsighted as to assume that they will disapprove of any other political party that might grow out of unrest and discontent over the next two or three generations. We must be unselfish enough to think beyond the next two or three generations. We must be honest enough to admit that we do not want our children to live their adult lives as we are now living ours. We must stop thinking in terms of our immediate future, because many of us will live for a great deal longer than that, ….

Unselfish. Honest. At what point did those kind of values stop being important, I wonder. Still, I found a good maxim in that article, it fits my philosophy perfectly, and it seems of many others:

Governability is not the Holy Grail, and we should not allow the government to sell it to us as such.

And we won’t Daphne. We won’t.

 

 

Categories
Campaign 2013

Cross-voting and angry voters

Let’s begin with the unequivocal points. Cross-voting, or the practice of filling your preferences in the ballot across party lines, is allowed. It is legal. It is legit. It does not nullify your vote. You can start with a 1 next to a candidate from AD, you can continue with a 2 and 3 next to PN candidates and then you can even move on to a 4 and 5 next to PL candidates. Hell, you can even go back to the PN for number 6 and back again to AD for number 7.

So you see. Do not believe the lies that are out there. You can and should cross-vote. Why? Because elections are not only about governance and governability but also about who represents you in parliament. Even if there is a remote chance that the number 5 on your ballot becomes useful to select a member from your district it is advisable to use it. Cross-voting allows you to influence not only which party goes on to govern but also allows you to select which members of the other party you would prefer to represent your district in parliament. That, my friends, is the “single-transferable vote” which is a much happier term than “cross-voting”.

In a way you could see STV as trying to make your vote as effective as possible since it keeps bouncing from one candidate to another until finally one of the candidates you chose actually gets to use it to get into parliament. As for government forming the all important number is the number 1. That is the vote that also counts for your party of choice – it allows you to say two things: (1) that you would prefer the candidate you marked number 1 as the best option to represent you in parliament and (2) that you would want his party to govern. That second assumption does not move down the lines. The governance assumption starts and stops with the number 1.

So why vote AD with a number 1 if they can never govern? Well in that case this vote takes on a new and fundamentally important meaning. Voting AD number 1 has nothing to do with if and when it will form a coalition or form part of the opposition. (It could eventually but that should not be your motivation). Voting AD number 1 is you telling the system that you want to damn well make sure that a third party gets into parliament. You are saying that you damn well want to make sure that the only open party unencumbered by private or business interests and that is honest and clear on every policy gets to have a seat in our chamber of representatives.

That, my friends is a positive vote. So here are some do’s and dont’s from J’accuse:

1. YES YOU CAN – cross-vote.

2. YES YOU CAN – move from one party to another.

3. YES YOU SHOULD – vote AD number 1 if you REALLY want to make history

4. NO YOU SHOULD NOT – scribble on the document, use X’s or any other signs that are not numbers

5. NO YOU SHOULD NOT – believe the PLPN lies.

 

Spread the word. It appears that there are quite a few who ignore these basic principles. It also appears that our two main parties who are the paladins and guardians of our democratic process are quite happy to nurture this ignorance. You need another reason to vote AD? Seriously?

 

Categories
Campaign 2013

Briguglio’s Faux Pas?

This is only the second national election being covered by this blog (which incidentally turns 8 on the day of the results). For the first time we have been ever more outright in our support for getting a third party elected into parliament particularly since alternattiva demokratika has not only proven to be a particularly apt vehicle for that process but also (and more importantly) it has proved its worth as a party with full credentials for representation. In other words it is much more than simply electing a third party for a third party’s sake.

Having said that the recent revelation regarding Michael Briguglio’s 2008 vote have caught many of the party’s supporters on the wrong foot – myself included. How can you trust a party that is led by a Chairman who openly declares not having voted for it last time round? A legitimate question if ever there was one.  Should AD have their version of Malcolm Tucker he would be down Michael Briguglio’s throat in no time. It would have much to do with the idea that there is a place and time for downright honesty and an electoral campaign is not one of them. There doesn’t seem to be a Tucker though and Briguglio seems to be happy enough with his version of “I have always been a floating voater and see no inconsistency”. Isn’t there?

Well I am not one to be satisfied by this and I have asked for a better explanation. Why did Michael Briguglio – an AD councillor in Sliema at the time – not vote for AD at the General Elections? The answer is not only comforting but also encouraging. It turns out that “AD mark 2008” run by Harry Vassallo was not turning out to be as incisive and effective as Mike Briguglio hoped. Compare that AD to today’s AD for an answer – today’s AD is confident, with a clear vision and is not into the business of begging for your number twos. Briguglio’s AD is definite about its position on everything – no half truths, no lies, no corners – just a clear “with us you know where you stand”. It also turns out that Mike had some concerns about the administrative running of the party. Mike had concerns on matters of principle.

I can understand Mike’s worry in that respect. Last time round the campaign from this corner of the blogosphere focussed on the third party for the third party’s sake and that might be a mistake. A party cannot simply be elected out of the need for a third party. It has to have clarity of vision. This might have been lacking to a point in 2008 and Mike’s contribution since his election to the chairmanship has contributed to making sure this lacuna is filled. Which brings me to the next point. Mike chose to sit back during the last election (he did NOT contest for AD – and retained his seat in the Sliema council out of respect for his voters). He did vote for Sant’s Labour given the choice. His disillusion with what was being wrought in AD at the time might have had a part in that decision.

One point that springs to mind is that Mike acted out of principle. Not agreeing with what was going on in the party at the time he stepped back. Did not campaign actively, did not contest (of course). Compare that to what was going on in the PN camp in 2008 with ghost writers and secretary general’s turning somersaults in order to sell the lie that was Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando. Would you barter Mike’s honest stand with that load of crap?

After that election Michael was approached by Labour to join the new movement. He turned this down. Surely if Mike wanted to be part of a Labour wave as some bad tongues are wagging right now he would have jumped on Muscat’s Train of Misfits? Surely it would have been easier for Michael to sell his progressive ideas in a Labour government than from the hypothetical partnership in a coalition? Surely. You’d have to be stupid to believe that Michael Briguglio has the Labour Party’s interests at heart.

We know what happened next. Cassola asked Mike to return to the AD fold. Vassallo was out of the picture working for the Nationalist Commissioner in the EU John Dalli (after having been hounded by the same nationalists on the eve of the election for having forgotten to file some VAT documents relating to defunct companies). Mike rejoined the new project with enthusiasm and charisma, bringing the experience garnered from years of political militancy. Sure, Mike brings a leftist touch to the Green politics of AD but anyone wanting to look at the credentials of Mike and his party need only look at the uncompromising principles in their manifesto. This is not a party that would sell its soul to the FKNK.

In the Maltese atmosphere of exploiters of ignorance and purveyors of fear it is easy to pounce on Mike’s honest answer to the question “who have you voted for in 2008?”. The gullible and the easily exploited will fall for the ruse that Mike is Labour disguised as green. Mike is none of that. Mike is one of the few honest candidates running for the election on the ticket that could make history.

For that reason and because I have full faith in Michael and his team I will be putting a number 1 next to Michael Briguglio’s name next election. (And yes, this Gozitan votes on the 10th District).