Nail biting

Yesterday was voting day here in Malta, and today everyman and his dog is waiting with bated breath for the counting results to start coming in. For anybody who doesn't know, elections are a serious business in this country. Election turnout is routinely in the ninetieth percentage and voter loyalty to the two main parties is more reminiscent of the hooligan's loyalty to his football club, or the faithfuls' to his deity than of a well thought out opinion based on past performance and future proposals.

This electoral campaign has been particularly vicious, even for the Malta that is used to the sharp divide between the Nationalists and the Socialists. At stake is the future of the leaders of both respective parties. Lawrence Gonzi has been the Nationalist leader and prime minister only for the last four years. He succeeded the old prime minister Eddie Fenech Adami after his retirement following the successful election of 2003 and Malta's accession to the European Union. Gonzi, an unelected prime minister, has had to live in Fenech Adami's shadow ever since his appointment to prime minister and, truth be told, in my opinion at least, he has done a reasonable job of it. Employment is up, investment is up, the financial and ICT sectors are being boosted. For the first time since Malta's independence the finance ministry is planning to have a surplus instead of a deficit by 2010.

On the other hand the nationalists have been in government for the last 20 years and they have been dogged by allegations of corruption for years now - the allegations, of course, coming mostly from the Labour party. The Labour party has been in the opposition ever since 1987, except for a brief 22 month stint in government under the leadership of Alfred Sant, characterised by an abysmal performance and an early election called by Sant due to a vote of no confidence and which he duly lost. The Labour party in Malta has long had a history of violence and corruption which, to his credit, Sant managed to patch up a bit following his appointment to Labour leader. This was mainly the reason he was elected in 1996 in the first place, together with his policy of indiscriminate mudslinging at the Nationalists. Of course mudslinging might get you to the top, but it won't keep you there.

Fast forward to this year's election and I'm afraid I'm seeing exactly the same pattern in the Labour party's actions as in 1996. There have been various accusations targeted at various Nationalist candidates leveled by Sant together with the instigation of an "us versus them" mentality amongst the Labour supporters. This contrasts sharply with the Nationalist slogan of "flimkien kollox possibli" (together all is possible) and their emphasis on a message of reconciliation.

In general this confrontational attitude does not really cause me undue concern, after all exposure of corruption can only be a good thing. Unfortunately the electoral programme of the Labour party seems to be composed almost entirely of these kind of aggressive attacks and far from enough well thought out proposals for future policies. The few clear policies they managed to articulate in between their frequent bouts of invective all seem to be tinged by an instinctive aversion to Malta's membership in the European Union. Labour had always opposed Malta's membership and they only grudgingly accepted the fact after they lost the 2003 election - Sant even openly pledging to disregard the positive result of the EU accession referendum if he had won in 2003. Of course, anybody in his right mind would immediately see that Malta's future could only have been as part of the EU and in fact the Maltese voted convincingly in favour - twice.

Since then Malta has clearly benefited from its EU membership, and the Nationalists have milked such membership for all it was worth - while the Socialists have obdurately persisted in dissing the whole concept. What worries me more than any other of the peculiarities of this election campaign is that Labour have pledged to re-open negotiations with the EU regarding Malta's accession deal. This is patently insane. There is no other way of putting it! Resurrecting such an important issue which has been dead and buried since 2003 can only bring huge uncertainties for foreign investors and it is foreign investment that Malta currently needs badly. If the work that has been done to consolidate Malta within the Union over these last years is threatened, we can kiss goodbye the plans of making Malta into a center for financial and ICT services.

I guess that from what I wrote above, it is pretty obvious where my preference lies. I'm currently following the counting process on TV and things don't seem to be looking up. We have exceptionally low voter turnout, especially in traditionally Nationalist localities and even though the ballot papers are still being sorted and counting in earnest has not started yet, the Socialists seem pretty bouncy while the Nationalists are starting to look rather twitchy.

And all this when I had managed to kick my nail biting habit!

In the meantime let me regale you with a picture of a painting of mine that is one of my favourites. It is a (loose) copy of Rembrandt's "A young girl leaning over a windowsill" I did some time ago in hard pastels over black pastel paper. Rembrandt is one of my favourites. I'm always amazed at the effects he managed to conjure up out of his canvas using a surprisingly limited palette of colours as well as his unbelievable brush handling skills. With one brush stroke he would, by making use of the texture of his canvas and his paint, create the illusion of fine detail without it being actually there. He was a master portraitist and my humble efforts at copying his work are of course not aimed at equaling his skill but only as an attempt to get into his mind - to get an inkling of what and how he was thinking while he was painting. Perhaps it's just the hope that some of his genius will somehow rub off onto me. Yeah right. :-)