Tag: #malta2013

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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

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

The Magritte Effect

I’ve already referred to this phenomenon earlier in the campaign. I’m calling it the Magritte Effect – the moment when you are told something but the picture and the clues before you are telling you a diametrically opposite story. This campaign more than any other has given us a steady dose of Magritte effects – your ears hear a statement, a story, a spin (or your eyes read it) but it is evident right from the start that it is a very very twisted distortion of what is reality. That’s it. This election has been one long hyperreal trip.

I cannot stand hearing any more protests about the “Wasted Vote” particularly when a vote for AD is practically the only vote that goes to a party that is not twisting truths or bending reality in order to seem to accomodate everything and everyone. A vote is a positive vote and that’s what you would be exercising should you chose to vote for Briguglio & Co. You’d be saying – “yes, there is one party that has given me a clear picture of what it wants and what it will do. I’m trusting them with my vote because they are not in bed with businessmen and other centres of interest, they have not sold their soul to any interest group that comes knocking. Yes, I hope they will get a seat in parliament – even in opposition – because I can trust them with representing my interests.”

As for the PLPN and their Magritte effect… where to start? How about funding? The ears hear Gonzi and Muscat waxing lyrical about party funding. We are told that both parties are fully accountable and don’t owe anyone any favours. Then our eyes see the PN getting a loan from businessman Nazzareno Vassallo and they insist (Look into my eyes, look into my eyes) that there are no obligations there. Labour speak as though they are the pauperissimi of the nation yet they are very evidently subsidised by big money – no obligations there either? Pull the other one. Let’s not forget Paul Borg Olivier’s infamous “we barter for our goods” statement and Labour’s never ending flow of cash with no real audited accounts. Then we are supposed to believe that these parties would self-discipline themselves should they be elected? Ha!

How about environment? The two main parties claim to be greener than an illicit hash deposit yet their wheelings and dealings with the hunting and squatting communities openly betray this deceit. Armier. Just one word should have you holding your noses and looking at the PLPN lists with disgust. It’s public land that will be given away there. Green public land in Armier, not that far away from JPO’s Mistra (remember that one). Then you see Labour all bla bla about being the best in Europe, better than Europe but when it comes to all the gas plans by Konrad Mizzi they seem to be more than prepared to ignore Environmental Assessments and safety directives. It’s their costings (coooostings) not mine you know. Magritte… we are green but we’ll be buggered if we’ll lose a few votes by staying green.

Then there’s the positive campaign business. A load of bollocks really. The last thing that Labour’s campaign has been is non-divisive. Rarely has Labour held back from slinging the mud even where it was evident that evidence was lacking. As for the PN. Ah, the masters of negative spin probably still hold some bombs in their arsenal. The apex of Magritt-ism was reached on the Runs the day the PN denied the persistent rumour that it had any dirt to bring out on Muscat’s personal life. Just look at this farce:

Ah good. I’m tired of being asked about this. Daphne Caruana Galizia

 

It couldn’t be more obviously comical and sad at the same time. The blogger is actually putting up the PN denial “No we don’t have any rumour on Muscat’s private life” then illustrates the blog with pictures that tell a different story – unattributed pics with unknown persons photographed with Muscat. There’s no better way to not kill a rumour than by adding more fuel to the rumour. A masterpiece from the blog that excels in tailoring, bespoke suits, funny hairlines and other such morass from the area of politics of taste.

The Magritte effect. It’s all over the place. PLPN are now busy trying to be what they are not. They need to be pleasant to anyone who could promise them a vote. Labour was busy rewriting history throughout the campaign – with a “we legalised homosexuality” lie here to a “we introduced stipends and opened university” lie there… the lie found fertile ground with the enthusiastic purveyors of non-change.

I’ve said it before and will say it again. Voting labour for change is like turning your underwear inside out and putting it on again. As for PN. Well PM Gonzi’s last displays of “trust us because there is nothing better than us” is the usual case of too little too late in many fields. It’s 2008 all over again. Vote for us to keep out the unelectable dinosaur that is labour. While there’s no denying at this point that the mascara riddled Labour party is a disaster in waiting, there’s also no denying that Gonzi’s PN failed on many counts to deal with the issues that were already pressing in 2008 – topmost among which is the issue of proportional representation in parliament.

Had these issues been dealt with we would not be speaking of wasted votes and insulting thousands of voters who could be about to vote positively (and not for the lesser evil default) with more confidence. 5 years ago they were busy backing up JPO to the hilt in order to scrape as many votes as possible (which they did). They told many to put their priorities of representation to the side and get the PN in – their priorities would be dealt with later.

Here we are again. 2013. This time voters have a clear and open opportunity to show that they see through the Magritte effect. They have a chance to use their vote positively and elect someone who can guarantee he will represent their interests even from the benches of the opposition.

In a campaign that is bereft with lies and faux promises the only party that has shown consistency and a consistency that yearns to be at your service is alternattiva demokratika.

A vote for alternattiva is a vote for real representation. It is a vote for change.

Don’t waste yours on fake effects. Don’t waste your vote. Vote AD.

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

Vote AD, get AD.

So it begins. It was inevitable that the moment the PN would start to see a tiny sliver of hope it would turn on alternattiva voters like there’s no tomorrow. It has happened before and it will go on happening with the timing of a swiss clock (did I say both swiss and clock in one phrase?) so long as the current rules of the game apply. Potential AD voters are targeted and accused of being irresponsible or of not knowing how to work out the math because it is obvious that if AD did not exist they would be voting anything but the dangerous, dangerous labour. But that is not the point is it? Here is what you should be thinking.

PLPN don’t own your vote

It’s the whole point of a campaign. At the start of a campaign it is assumed that no party has a guaranteed vote. It is supposed to earn them  with its proposals and plans. It is supposed to convince you. So to begin with your vote is not owned by anyone. If you chose to vote AD then no other party “loses” votes since it did not have them in the first place. Only arrogant parties who believe that the world is divided between partisan hotheads and “switchers” (the new floaters) believe that votes are “lost”. Voting AD means sending out a number of messages. It means that you have seen what the party has to offer and that you believe that you are best represented in parliament by that party.

It’s not about governance stupid

Oh. They will tell you that one of the two main parties needs a clear majority to be able to govern with stability. You are irresponsible if you let AD get in the way of the stability. But what does stability mean currently? It means that the PLPN can “govern” for five years and steamroller over the minority. Remember we had a relative majority government – 49% of the people for the last five years. That government failed to change the laws relating to electoral representation notwithstanding the fact that it had used and abused the flaws of representation last time round. Yes, five years back we had the same issues – party flag waving opinion columnists accused ad voters of setting themselves up as objects of hate right before voting in the stable government of JPO (number one in Bidnija), Franco Debono and Jesmond Mugliett. We were told then (remember Dudu?) that we should give priority to keeping Sant out then the PN would magically reform the electoral nonsense and give the world a fairer system. Ha!

Five years on

Voting AD is a statement. A positive one. It has nothing to do with tribal politics and everything to do with it. Right now AD carries the sole responsibility of being the third alternative. Ideally you would be voting AD because you found their proposals convincing. Another reason would be your refusal to be an accomplice to the PLPN hegemony – and that is becoming an important reason too. This campaign has shown us more than ever the true colours of the PLPN. Both parties are deeply indebted to wider circles of power prominent among which are the business community. They are parties that can shrug off a quarter of a million load as though it was everyday business, they deal in bartering and they seem to be inexplicably able to fund multi-millionaire campaigns.

You might have an inbuilt sympathy for one of the two parties that might come from an upbringing within a partisan milieu – the kind that the Labour Courage video tried to tap – but that does not make you a nationalist or labourite. It might help you find it easier not to vote for one of the parties and a little less easier not to vote for another. It’s a bad habit though nothing more. Remember nobody owns your vote. Your vote needs to be deserved. It cannot be won over on the eve of an election with the usual fear-mongering.

You reflected. You saw the rot that the PLPN have given us and the rot they are promising to propagate. You chose to vote AD and are determined to vote AD come election day. Nobody is losing your vote. Your vote goes towards making history. Towards change.

Nivvota AD. Ghax ma nibzax minnek.

Categories
Campaign 2013

More J’accuse in Oz

Another interview with Marlene Cassandra Galea on SBS Radio in Australia. This time we discuss “tribalism” among other things.