After the uprising of the 17th June The Secretary of the Writers Union Had leaflets distributed in the Stalinallee Stating that the people Had forfeited the confidence of the government And could win it back only By redoubled efforts. Would it not be easier In that case for the government To dissolve the people And elect another?
The Solution: Bertolt Brecht
The election announced, the speculation begins. All forms of calculation are based on the ultimate constant: the rules of the game have not changed and ultimately the duocracy provides the only viable alternatives to electors. Anything else is offside.
Against all odds. The polls are unforgiving. Labour shall and will win. The question faced by those whose eyes have been opened is whether any credible opposition can be raised at this late stage. We will see different theories on the best ways to make opposition count. From the urgency of voting them out (vote PN) through the tired and illogical holding of the nose we will be presented with different reasons why voting PN is the only way to mitigate the onslaught of LabourAgain.
Even with the last minute purge of its undesirable parts the PN has failed miserably by turning up at the election as a loose collection of parts that is still committed to salvaging the system. Having been so close on numerous occasions to taking the leap into the unknown and transforming itself into a revolutionary party, the PN limits its odds to the quintessential “vote me for I am not Labour”.
We are still to see a commitment to the dismantling of the PLPN system that is necessary to rebuild the nation from scratch. It is only then that a vote for the Nationalist Party will mean anything more than simply voting in an alternative abuser of the system.
At this stage, with this kind of odds involved, the blank ballot becomes a powerful and attractive alternative. I strongly doubt we could ever reach the 83% level of blank ballot “terrorism” described in Saramago’s Seeing but the blank ballot is fast becoming the clearest form of protest vote of real opposition.
Unless a party provides a clear and unqualified commitment to a systemic overhaul the solution for those who are no longer blind can only be the blank ballot. Turn up to the polling booth and register your dissatisfaction with what is on offer by posting a blank ballot in the box.
Miegħek. Flimkien. Vot vojt.
“Casting a ballot is your irrevocable right, and no one will ever deny you that right, but just as you tell children not to play with matches, so we warn whole peoples of the dangers of playing with dynamite.”
The nationalist party has as yet not imploded but we still hear of calls for its reconstruction. Back in May 2008 we were penning a little post about the Labour party and the dangers of Clique & Factions and we are today still witnessing the problems that our parties face when factions within them (even one-man-factions) decide to stir the proverbial faeces. Democratically speaking we are now witnessing the obvious corollary of all that J’accuse was warning about last election.
Voting for our political parties in this day and age involves making specific choices about the persons you are voting into parliament. When the political parties, operating under the blessing of an electoral system doctored in favour of the Diceyan bipartite mantra, fail to put into place the necessary safeguards to ensure that all candidates are party kosher (because they prefer votes to value) then it is only a matter of time before the merde hits the ventilateur.
We spoke of this in Wasted a bit more than a year ago. Then it was the manner that party representatives purported to represent the great unwashed in the divorce affair that jarred. Nowadays we have the Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando witch hunt. We can never tire of pointing out how right this blog was in 2008 to emphasise the blatant anomaly in the PN manner of doing politics. Backing anyone and anything to the hilt simply because it helps bring votes in the massive showdown of GonziPN vs Sant only gets you into government. Once you are in government you will have to face the consequences of getting “anyone” elected on your side.
We were told at the time that we were irresponsible idiots who never grew up and who were setting ourselves up as objects of hate simply because we advocated a position that people vote for quality and content and not simply on the lines of party backing and pretty faces (though some would beg to differ on the latter count).
Great brains like Richard Cachia Caruana were busy transforming Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando into a vote grabbing machine – converting the unpalatable cosmetic dentist into a sugar-free sweetener who had become a “victim” of “nasty Alfred Sant”. The gullible ones swallowed it all – hook, line and sinker – and rushed to the ballot box to vote JPO #1 – thus shafting this unpleasant, inconsistent and hopelessly garishly naive politician upon us. Us of the wasted votes. We who had screamed and shouted irresponsibly for the PN to get its act together and to build a foundation of candidates centred around the basic values that had got it through a decade of reform.
Well. You reap what you sow I guess and Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando has been one hell of a harvest for the PN to handle. (picture: J’accuse Personality of the Year Award as depicted by Bertu in Bertoons). The reconstruction must perforce start from the realisation that some very very wrong choices were made.
Tennis worth watching
Watching Andy Murray collapse into tears after being defied at the last hurdle at SW19 by the greatest player tennis has seen must have been the most moving moment this weekend. Second best at Wimbledon earns you £560 k not to mention the added branding income that Murray will see flowing his way given his immediate boost in the “world recognition” stakes. Tennis stars earn more money off the pitch once they become a recognisable icon and yesterday’s match meant just that for the Scot from Dunblane. Roger Federer’s net worth, to give an alien example, is around $200 million but we are talking here about a man who has broken all sorts of records in the gentlemen’s sport.
Back to Murray – all this talk about money meant nothing to him yesterday afternoon. His name was not being engraved in the Olympus of Wimbledon greats and he has still not won a grand slam. Sure, he will not be having any cash flow problems for a while but that is beside the point. His is a battle to achieve, one that is ultimately not measured in pounds, shillings and pence but in victories and performance. Values that are fast being lost in today’s world – and not necessarily the sporting one.
Democracy’s value added
Libya has gone off and done the democratic thing – electing its own government and leaders. This may not be the time for the Western world to shout success: the real proof of a democracy lies not in the electing but in the democratic governance. Saturday night saw fireworks in the Libyan sky as the end of voting was celebrated. A 60% turnout seems to be the agreed figure and a liberal alliance is expected to trump the Islamist party this time round. Government will in all probability be by coalition given that over 100 parties were formed to contest these first open elections. Democracy battles to outwit any possibility of civil unrest that would favour the more unstable sides of society. Meanwhile Assad is holding on to power in Syria – claiming that he has the backing of the people.
Is it ironic, dramatic or downright farcical that in all this hullabaloo and with the two main parties completely at sea and in full panic mode, the AD can only* come up with a challenge regarding the boathouses at Armier? Throughout last Friday’s Xarabank Arnold Cassola seemed to provide the only reconciliatory potential for all the other members of the panel. They were at each other’s throats most of the time and Edwin and Michael had their tongues so far up Debono’s behind that they had trouble speaking but the moment Cassola attempted to use the precious space on public TV to highlight the deficiencies of bipartisan thinking and logic he was drowned by a concerted chorus of denigration.
I only watched Xarabank today and you may be surprised to find that even I thought that Franco was coherent in his arguments. I said coherent not justified. I particularly like his idea of a holistic approach to institutional reform intended to sanitise the business of government and democracy from the impending rot caused by the PLPN. I cannot not like this kind of thinking. It’s what J’accuse has been on about for a long long time. The retorts from Edwin and Michael were obvious – from the denial that PLPN act in their own interests to the dismissal of the importance of a role for other parties and forces in the country.
Then again it will be back to business once the election is called. As Arnold pointed out mid-program no reforms will take place before the next election. Forget a law on party financing, on data protection of individuals and other similar safeguards. Protect you from the parties? Ma tarax. I am told that NET TV reported today that the PL has started taking action in court to deprive expats from their votes. I am still waiting for the denial from Muscat. Who knows we might constitute an additional danger to the “instability” of the country. So yes. No changes before the election. Which means no new thresholds. No nationwide district. No tweaks in favour of proportional representation. AD are still up shit creek with no paddle and with no visible candidates to attract the protest voters who cannot get it into themselves to vote PL.
Which brings me to the boathouse challenge. It’s a legitimate challenge. AD wants PL and PN to commit to remove boathouses in Armier. Here’s Cacopardo:
With a general election seemingly on the radar, the Nationalist Party and Labour Party should take up Alternattiva Demokratika’s challenge and openly declare their stand on these boathouses if they want to gain credibility with the local environmental lobby, which has advanced into something more than a simple lobby.
It’s an important matter. Of the kind that has often the potential of exposing PLPN’s duplicity in these matters. Remember Gonzi’s letter to boathouse owners? Remember the pandering of PLPN to hunters? Last minute promises to specific sectors such as the LGBT movement are rumoured to have swung the last election. So AD is asking for something simple. A commitment. On paper. Will the big parties take up the challenge? Will voters give the challenge any importance?
My guess? AD will be ignored as they have always been. Because they are a non-entity. Like the last standing boathouse they are too small to be noticed. And anyway we are busy voting for the next party that is to become our permanent grudge. Busy shooting ourselves in the foot.
Because we have been taught to believe the stupid lie: if we want everything to change, then everything must remain the same.
Fuck you Tommasi di Lampedusa.
*not really only but it’s what is in the news right now.
So you voted PN last election? You got Lawrence Gonzi and Austin Gatt. You got David Agius and Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando. You got Edwin Vassallo and Tonio Fenech. You got Tonio Borg and Karl Gouder. You got the party that is anti-divorce on paper but can wake up one morning and spring a private members bill surprise. You’ve also got Joe Saliba to thank for those sleepless nights conferring profession after profession on Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando – from dentist to farmer to press card bearing journalist. Don’t worry though… if you’ve got a liberal streak in you there’s always Cyrus Engerer and Frank Psaila’s plan for a “social liberal” face to save the day.
So you voted PL last election? Well actually you voted for Alfred Sant’s MLP but we know where that one went. After the tears subsided what did you get? You got Joseph Muscat and Adrian Vassallo. You got Owen Bonnici and Marie Louise Coleiro. You get Marlene Pullicino and Gino Cauchi. You get a party that wants to be liberal and progressive but fails to take a simple stand on divorce. You get the inventor of the “free vote” that means that whatever the flying flip you wanted to elect in parliament has no point anyway – because the individuals’ conscience is paramount. So was it pro-divorce Muscat that you were thinking of or was it anti-divorce Vassallo?
Have you really ever sat down and wondered what your vote translates to once the noise of the last carcade subsides, once the last billboard of empty propaganda is removed and once the last article of the spinners of hate is condemned to the bottom of your dustbin?
Funny. Last I heard, not voting PL or PN would turn out to be a “wasted vote”.
“I’m sorry, but in your desperate attempts at convincing yourselves and anyone else who is listening that if XXX becomes prime minister you have nothing to do with it, you are on your own. If you had the slightest bit of political savvy or psychological nous, you would know that you are setting yourselves up as hate objects…”
It’s the last day before voting day and the three main parties in the UK have unleashed their last attempts to lure voters to their fold. Or should it be to scare voters away from their opponents’ fold? The Fear Factor, redolent of the Top Trumps Horror Series, has become a major player in this election that could have seismic consequences on the British electoral system.
Here, for example, is the Daily Mail’s toon – moved to the front page today for extra punch. MAC (the cartoonist) depicts the obvious choice for anyone toying between the (LibDem friendly) hung parliament and what the Tories would see as an alternative: strong government.
Mac on the Mail
In it’s front page article the Mail is ruthless on those “wrong-headed” individuals toying with the idea of a hung-parliament. And the usual suspect arguments are out – shot at the crowd with wanton abandonment.
The Mail cannot stress too strongly how wrong-headed and dangerous it believes this view is. Whoever wins the election, Britain will desperately need bold, decisive government if we’re to avoid the nightmare into which Greece has been plunged. A hung parliament, with the probability of a coalition or pact, will result in a weak administration, dependent on back-room deals and shabby compromises.
Now now. A bold, decisive government like Mr Brown’s (and Blair’s before it did preside over the initial tsunami of banking and financial chaos but this is not the time to remind the giddy electors is it?
Labour has used the Blair trump to “shake some sense” into the “hung parliament voter”. In what sounds like a more sensible approach Blair admonished Labour voters who thought of voting tactically (LibDem) to keep the Tories out. The Guardian reports Blair shooting down the LibDems :
Tony Blair: Fear Factor '97
The Telegraph pulled out all sorts of rabbits out of its hat. The YouGov poll showing LibDems down to 24% and a surge for Labour to 30% provides the background to a number of anti-hung parliament possibilities. There’s the possible deal with Northern Ireland’s Unionists (better the coalition partner you can chew), or (sit down before you read this) Simon Cowell‘s backing Cameron as “the prime minister Britain needs at this time”. They did say that the TV debates had an X Factor feel about them but hey… Simon Cowell??
If the backing of multi-millionaire Cowell would not dissuade Tory voters from voting LibDem then you had the good old guilt by affinity – remember the “zokk u fergha“? “Clegg styles himself as successor to Blair” – it doesn’t get any scarier for a down and out Tory does it?
For an interesting take on the world outside “tribal pulls” read the Times’ resident genius Finkelstein. Unlike most Brits he never felt the tribal pull so he does not find it difficult to opt for Cameron this time round:
So, annoyingly, this election will be determined by people fighting a tribal urge that I’ve never felt and can’t completely relate to. The best I can offer is this: once I considered myself on the centre Left, and I don’t any more. And once I, too, had “never voted Tory”, but in the end I didn’t find it very difficult at all.
They would like us to think that their inspiration is Barack Obama’s The Audacity of Hope. But in fact, as the country prepares to go to the polls, the political parties seem to have been more influenced by Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail.
Gordon Brown yesterday described the Tory manifesto as a “horror show”. Labour’s recent election broadcast featured a tax inspector with a clipboard going, like the Grim Reaper, from house to house telling families which tax credits and cancer treatments they will lose if David Cameron wins on May 6. It was scare mongering of the worst kind.
The Conservatives, meanwhile, are trying to terrify the electorate about the prospect of a hung Parliament with posters featuring a noose. To me the subliminal message was “Vote Tory, get hung”, an eccentric strategy for a party trying to shed a “nasty” image caused in part by rightwingers’ support for capital punishment. Their other most memorable image was a pair of bovver boots.
Nick Clegg is picking up support because he looks like a different kind of politician, one who does not engage in the petty squabbling and negative campaigning of the “two old parties”. But my local Liberal Democrat candidate has just delivered a leaflet that has only one message, printed in huge capital letters across it: “I don’t trust politicians either.” From a man who is himself trying to become an MP, it looks less like a new politics than the same old dirty tricks.
I just love Sylvester’s conclusion. The dilemma is very much alive in the UK as it will be in Malta come next election:
Like Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, this campaign has got curiouser and curiouser. With Nick Clegg going from Churchill to a Nazi in less than a week, Gordon Brown meeting an Elvis impersonator and David Cameron pulling the head off a chicken, there has been something surreal to the whole thing — and not just in spin alley. The election itself will be a bit like the Queen of Hearts’ declaration: “Sentence first — verdict afterwards!” But will the voters also soon shout: “Off with their heads”?
Hang or Behead - Fear Factor Unknown
addendum:
Back in 2008 when the attacks on the “Wasted Voters” were akin to the carpet bombing of Dresden on a bad day I had written an open letter on J’accuse (Daphne’s Invigilators) in answer to their attacks. That it is still very relevant two years on says much about how far we are advancing locally.
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