Tag: AD

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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

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.

 

 

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Campaign 2013

Voting like it’s 1992

What follows is a strange kind of guest post. It comes to J’accuse via a serendipitous trip through time and space. It’s the kind of post that has been just been waiting to surface and I cannot agree more with the argument being made by the guest writer whom I shall call DeLorean. It is an impassioned argument set out against the constitutional provisions that were framed in 1991 to keep the PLPN system working. It’s not pro-ad, it’s pro-democracy, representation and choice. Read it. It’s important – for you and for future generations.

The argument

Many people have been misguided into thinking that the fight over [the electoral laws] has something to do with Alternattiva Demokratika. It does not. It has everything to do with resisting the entrenchment of the two-party system.

During a discussion on broadcasting […], one prominent government minister (that was gratuitous… all ministers are prominent) remarked that he “firmly believed” in the two-party system “because this makes the country more governable”. It was all I could do to fight the urge to throw my handbag at him, and point out that, following his line of argument, the most governable countries of all should be those with one party. But that, as we all know, has failed.

Belief in a two-party state is belief in a form of totalitarianism masquerading as democracy. All we have now is a political see-saw, with a fat Nationalist boy sitting on one end, and a pudgy Socialist boy on the other. First one goes up, then the other. Is this a wonderful state of affairs, to be preserved at all costs? Should governability enter the argument at all? Who cares about governability, if in ensuring governability we strangle the democratic process? Governability is not the Holy Grail, and we should not allow the government to sell it to us as such.

Individual members of both the government and the opposition have expressed their delight in the two-party system. They have not dared express their real longing: for a one-party system. When a party believes that it fulfils all the needs of all the Maltese people – how dare anyone claim to do so, and still they do – the next step is to claim that it should govern ad aeternum. Why not, once it is so damn perfect?

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.

Meanwhile the Maltese population lives in an atmosphere of political instability. I define political instability as not knowing what life holds for one after each election, of the necessity of mapping one’s life in a series of five-year plans.

Austin Gatt is right: on paper, the [constitutional electoral provisions] favour the small parties. In practice, they mostly do not. It is practice that concerns us here, and not theory. Dr. Gatt is almost certainly unable to stand up and say, with his hand on his heart, that the [constitutional provisions] will not, in practice adversely affect any small party. They will be a death knell. They will also discourage the growth of political parties in the future, which is a cause for grave concern.

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, certainly longer than most of the politicians [who are now readying themselves to vote, using a hammer and chisel, on amendments to our Constitution].

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?

[… fragments lost]

This article originally appeared in The Sunday Times of Malta on the 3rd November 1991.

 

(To understand the future, we have to go back in time).

 

 

 

Categories
Campaign 2013

The Coalition Lie

As I said, it was inevitable that the attacks on Alternattiva would take a turn for the worse as the election got closer. The inevitability is also the result of two particular traits of the main parties. The Nationalist party thrives on the belief of being the “obvious” choice and therefore that most voters voting AD (who are somehow intelligent but not intelligent enough) are lost votes. Labour on the other hand still believes that everyone is against it and that every vote has to be “won” from elsewhere. In short the Nationalist party wins elections if it does not lose votes, Labour wins them if it gains them – at least by their reasoning where votes are “owned” from the start.

The latest attacks on AD come in the form of the “governance vs coalition” and at least they spare us the insult of considering a vote for AD as a lost or wasted vote. What they do instead is remind the voter of the total and absolute flop of the last PN government insofar as infighting was concerned and what that did to the stability of government. Well here’s the hitch… or more than one…

It’s not a coalition, stupid.

We dealt with this and nipped it in the bud. The PN machine tried all that it could to call the PN-JPO settlement a coalition. It was anything but that. Neither was the uncomfortable entente moins que cordiale with Franco Debono. You’d have to be stupid, blinkered or partisan to call it a coalition. It was a cohabitation of sorts. The main reason is simple – JPO, Debono and the rest of the PN members ran on the same party ticket. When Lawrence Gonzi went to the President with the confident assertion that he could form a majority (relative majority) government in parliament he went with the knowledge that a majority of parliamentarians had run on the same ticket with the same promises and the same projects in mind. You cannot form a coalition with yourself. Simples. You can call it a coalition. You can illude yourself with the terminology but the truth is that Debono and JPO came through last elections with the full backing and support of the PN vote winning machine. Your party, your members, your problem. Do not dare compare them to a fledgling party with clear and precise policies and conditions for a coalition.

How real coalitions are built.

First of all it’s an interesting sign that neither Gonzi nor Muscat dared deny the possibility of a coalition – 11 days before the election. I don’t believe them one bit. Neither of them. But publicly they cannot afford to seem intransigent with a potential third party in parliament before the eggs are hatched. In practice though they will unleash the negative campaign because they cannot afford to share their precioussss with someone else. Which is ridiculous.

Coalitions are not a zero-sum game. They are built on compromise. An interesting question that has not been asked (but should be asked) of Michael Briguglio is what part of the Alternattiva Demokratika manifesto is not subject to discussion. As in which part of the AD manifesto would be a deal-breaker in the eventual discussions for the setting up of a coalition? Would AD insist on gay marriages or nothing for example? Are there parts of the PN/PL manifestos that AD would be intransigent on – as in they would not accept to be part of the government vote in those cases? There are multiple solutions. A coalition could agree to a free vote on the more controversial aspects of legislation – thus the coalition partners can vote in accordance to their manifesto.

Mike Briguglio will not need to stamp his feet, fake a sickie in bed or call press conferences from a field with a tea cup in hand. He will negotiate a reasonable coalition roadmap with whichever party is mature enough to listen. With luck they’ll last the full five years.

The thing is that this is a matter of negotiation based on votes and principles found in the respective manifestos – it is representative democracy in action. It is nothing like the whims and fancies of renegade PN elected members of parliament where we had power for power’s sake being at stake. Don’t swallow the lies of the Daphnes of this world who would love to atone for their sins of voting in irresponsible representatives by spreading the curse to the small party with a big heart.

And another thing. They say coalitions don’t work. I would not be surprised if a coalition with the PN or PL does not work but not for the reasons that they try to scare you with. It’s simpler. From day one the PL or PN would do their damnedest to see that the coalition does not work in the hope of forcing a new vote and winning the preciousss all for themselves. It’s in their nature. It’s in their instinct for survival.

The Anti-politics Instinct

Finally AD is not an antipolitical movement like Grillo’s M5S. It is a completely different reality. True, it can and will be used as a vehicle in Malta for those votes that are fed up with the old style politics that gives you “coalitions” with JPO but that is not the be all and end all of Malta’s green movement. AD has shown to have clear policies which are based on the citizen’s interest and not polluted with the interests of circles of power and businessmen. That alone should suffice as an incentive to vote for change and go for the AD coalition.

This election is not about choosing between the PL and PN. It’s about voting for a better, more representative parliament. This election you can be part of the vote for change.

It’s not a vote for PN or PL.

It’s a vote that’s a part of the change, stupid.

Categories
Campaign 2013

Snapshot # 3: The voters anonymous

The noise from the election campaign is becoming just that. It’s just like listening in to a mass meeting by a storm of locusts – noisy as ever but rarely makes sense. It happens every election. We kick off hoping to discuss issues, plans, projects and directions for the economy and society but more often than not we end up discussing scandals, allegations, ad hominem accusation and more such filth. This time round there is no shortage of finger pointing: amateur sleuths, wannabe lawyers and born-again-doubters are suddenly all into scandals and -gates. I’d pinpoint the genesis of this particularly heavy wave to the moment when the Sliema Local Council began to fall apart.

Now we have Oil Procurement gate replete with presidential pardons and alleged implications at ministerial level. We have Abela-gate with secret recordings allegedly uncovering a politician openly admitting what could amount to influencing the police force. We have the double edged sword of Zarb-gate: on the one hand a union caught trading in influence and on the other hand an alleged collusion between the businessman involved and the nationalist party. Meanwhile serious accusations of suspect funding to both parties have been swept under the carpet conveniently as each party prefers to concentrate on its scandal of choice – leaving questions about how millionaire campaigns are funded suspended in thin air.

This post can easily be misconstrued as being an attempt at minimising the importance of having an efficient system that uncovers any kind of fraudulent activity. It is not my intention to do so. What I intend to point out though is that much of this caravan and circus will eventually peter out come the 10th March. The horror, the shock and the awe that some politicians feign when confronted with proof (as demonstrative a proof as is available) will soon be relegated to the general “forget-me” bin only to be recycled five years down the line. Honestly. Do you remember the fuss and fantasy generated by Mistragate last time round? What of it?

The truth is that such shenanigans and uncovering of modus operandi of politicians and friends of politicians only SEEM to have become nastier. In reality our political system is geared to co-exist with the circles of power that surround it. Whether it is the police, the legal system, the big business or the unions, alliances are made and broken and fool you are if you think that any of the lot is innocent of such tomfoolery. The charade of investigations and holier-than-thou pronouncements (or as Toni Abela would have it… my banana is cleaner than yours) is just that.

My question and next point is how much does that influence the voter. All these theatricals are for the voter’s inconvenience in the end. They are meant to point out the inadequacy of the other side because the other side is Corrupt/Hapless/Undisciplined (take your pick). Does the voter care? Reading Roberto Saviano on La Repubblica I had a chance to confirm what could be a Mediterranean or even a European trait. Oftentimes the voter is just as enmeshed in the power circles that are at work. The difference in the voter’s case is that he falls further down the line of enjoyment but still feels the compulsion to confirm his participation and thus develop a legitimate expectation. It’s all about a job, a sick relative or a parking space.

Yes. Often the voters’ priority (beyond the obvious partisan impulse) is based purely on one particular service (or inversely is the result of one particular disservice). Is it a refused MEPA permit for altering one’s balcony? Is it a refused rebate on a taxed imported car? Is it a refused access into a school? When you hear the opposition complaining about the “power of incumbency” what they are complaining about is the fact that they have less clout in this not so covert black market where promises to fill gaps in voters’ needs are traded. Do not be deceived. The trading is across the board – opposition or government. The promises are there for everyone. Because Malta Taghna Lkoll is really a euphemism for the politician’s position in the system of cogs and wheels that gets this republic going. It’s not just Labour’s slogan. It’s everybody’s.

Voters will not really be impressed by the many -gates. They either had made their mind up before the scandals surfaced or had their ideas confirmed by the plethora of accusations. In some quarters pundits will try to sell the idea of a “responsible” vote one that supposedly is made in the best interests of the country. It’s a load of bull really. Those very pundits are motivated by the cogs and wheels that get this country going. Knowingly or unknowingly their vote is pre-conditioned by this state of affairs.

A responsible vote is one that tries its damn best to change the system. It is one that requires at least 2000 anonymous voters in one district voting on the basis of what the nation needs and not on the idea that they will get some form of personal reward. Sadly the power of incumbency of the old style politicians will probably mean that the responsible voter loses out. Again.

 

 

 

Categories
Campaign 2013

A time for lemons

This morning’s Sunday paper sequence had a not too comfy surprise in store for the blue side of this election campaign. As the mass meeting attending acolytes packed their flags and horns for the second of their electoral xalati we read in MaltaToday about yet another scandal exploding in GonziPN’s face. A bloke who goes by the name of Frank Sammut and who has up until now enjoyed the veil of anonimity is at the centre of this scandal. Apparently while sitting on some board that is entrusted with the procurement of oil for our greater benefits (and with the wherewithal to purchase such oil – to the tune of 360 million euros annually), Sammut also allegedly acted as “consultant” to one of the oil companies, pocketing loadsamoney in the process.

Smashing isn’t it? Here we were again with yet another Silvio Zammit sounding story. Maltese “businessmen” who do what they do best when linked with political masters. In this case Sammut is an appointee – a nationalist government appointee. If the “hard proof” that Saviour Balzan is crowing about right now is real then shit has really hit the proverbial fan and I don’t think that the PN machine will pull off another JPO spin to cover up Sammut.

Let’s leave that story and its facts unfold for now. We cannot do much at the moment except take note. I am sure that Monday will bring much more information. Meanwhile we now have an even bigger quandary when it comes to the election and more particularly the energy sector.

On the one hand you have Labour and Konrad Mizzi’s “plans” that look like they leak unpreparedness from whichever point you look. This blog need not apologise when it reaches the conclusion that Mizzi and Labour do not seem to have their act together and are not able to cough up enough guarantees that their plan works.

On the other hand you have PN who can be all smiles and expert when it comes to shooting down Labour’s plans but who are a huge fail when it comes to managing their very own personnel. Most importantly it becomes increasingly harder for the nationalist party to sell their pitch that they operate in the interests of the nation and not in the interests of many groups of many men with an interest in having their part of the pie. And insofar as this particular point is concerned it is of no consolation that should Labour be elected there would still be pie sharing but by different people.

So there you have it. The clueless vs the corrupt. Which brings me to the little party with the big manifesto. It’s a long long read. I still haven’t digested it all and there are quite a few points I definitely disagree with (here’s two: I’m not for any glorification of the president and his powers nor am I for any political party wishing to interfere in how student unions are run) but hey alternattiva have a concrete set of proposals.

The way I see it when it comes to economy and energy AD have concrete ideas. Better still the ideas are based on principles such as taxing progressively, a social conscience and studying solutions based on renewable, clean energy. It’s all there waiting to be put into action or at worst to be copied by the empty vessel parties in five or ten years time. The media will try to minimise AD’s contribution to the usual shocking positions on drugs and LGBT rights.

The truth is that there has never been a moment more than today, more than now, when the role of a third party – possibly as a minor partner in a coalition government – could be crucial to returning any semblance of sanity and direction to our political system. Now, more than ever, should the intelligent beings who do not flock blindly to mass meetings or cheer their leaders at “debates” on Xarabank really be investing their vote in the third party.

Electoral Manifesto (Alternattiva Demokratika)