How come Labour is still leading in the polls?

In a country which is rife with scandals and corruption across the board; and over-run with construction which has ruined our urban and rural landscape, you would think that the administration of the day would be suffering at the polls.

And yet, the latest surveys show just the opposite. The PL is registering an average support of 49.9%, the PN stands at 44.4% while support for third parties is at 5.7%. In other words, if an election were to be held tomorrow, Labour would probably still win.

This is not the first time that Labour has managed to maintain its lead, despite all odds. No matter what the latest scandal happens to be (take your pick, there are so many), the party seems to be immune and, with Teflon-like precision, the muck and the mud just slide right off.

For example, the concession given to Vitals and then Steward to manage three hospitals, should have seen a major upgrade when one hears of the millions that were paid. Yet, after spending a considerable time visiting Karin Grech Rehabilitation Hospital recently, I can say it is an utter disgrace and stuck in a time warp circa 1988. It is shabby, antiquated, lacking modern kitchen and bathroom facilities. I doubt anything was spent on its aesthetic appearance, although at least we can be thankful that there are proper hospital beds. While I can vouch for the dedicated, professional staff and excellent health care provided by everyone, the environment is crying out for a facelift. When one has to spend many long weeks and months in a rehab hospital, the atmosphere goes a long way to help with the cure. It’s also not fair on the staff to work in such depressing conditions. It really doesn’t need millions to make it look better, so when one juxtaposes the sheer neglect at Karin Grech with how much of our taxes were wasted on that scandalous contract, it is enough to make you see red.

This is the end result of corruption – something tangible and real which many Maltese patients and their relatives have experienced for themselves. Money was squandered and people in high places got rich instead. There are many other similar examples directly linked to the scandals we read about every day.

There is a lot to be justifiably angry and disillusioned about, so the question is why can’t the Opposition make any real inroads and claim back the floating voters who gave the PL its super majority in the first place?  Despite the large chunk of former Labour voters who say they will adamantly not vote for their party, they will still not migrate to the Nationalist Party. The reasons for this are various: An ingrained, visceral dislike for the PN and its exponents, which is often very hard to shake off and the fact that Opposition leader Bernard Grech rarely comes up with real feasible solutions for the country’s problems and finally, because the PN itself is seen as so fragmented that its ideology and principles are very hard to pin down.

Let’s take the last point. What does the PN of 2025 stand for?  There is a faction which is very hard-core, right-wing and unabashedly conservative which is what the Nationalist Party has always traditionally been. Among them, you will find those who speak openly of supporting Trump purely because of his anti-immigrant, anti-Liberal stance (even though the Times poll showed that he has the highest support from middle-aged Labour voters, I can assure you that there are many Trump supporters within the PN, even if they keep their views private).   

Then there is another faction, raised in conservative households but who have broken free from their own rigid upbringing. They went to Church schools but have sent their children to secular independent schools; they were bought up to be very religious but their own children rarely go to Church; whereas their parents on the whole adhered to their vows of until death to us part, the second generation includes a large percentage of separation, divorce, cohabitation, civil marriages and children born from new relationships. The more liberal PN faction also includes gay supporters who have now been able to get married. I want to make it clear I am not moralising or passing judgement, just stating facts.

Bridging the chasm between these two completely different ideologies (because that is what they are), has been the challenge for the PN ever since the infamous divorce referendum in 2011.

It was there that the first cracks started to show, because how do you reconcile advocating for divorce when the core values of the party have always been enshrined in traditional Catholic dogma? It was at that time that many Nationalist supporters started to feel uneasy and irritated about the lack of flexibility of its MPs and leaders who could not (or would not) accept the separation of Church and state, but felt they had the right to tell the public what to do in their private lives, even as a few of them were hypocritically doing the opposite.

Apart from these morality issues, there were other fissures which appeared as minuscule at first but which then cracked wide open during the unforgettable years when Adrian Delia was elected to replace Simon Busuttil as leader following another PN defeat.

The debacle which followed, instigated by those who simply would not accept him, meant that the nasty infighting spilled into the public domain, and that spelled the end of the PN as we know it. Since then, it has never fully recovered.

Undecided Opposition

So this is the situation we have today – an Opposition which cannot seem to decide which side of the fence to stand on, when it comes to a whole plethora of issues.

Golden Passports? It’s hard to shut down that goldmine down when so many Nationalist (and Labour) lawyers, notaries and brokers have become rich from it.

Exorbitant rents? Again, there are too many people making money from this sector (almost everyone you speak to is now a landlord).

Over-development? There are very few people willing to stick to their principles and not sell their family home or a too-costly-to-maintain inherited property, to a developer. The PN, like Labour, is also much too cosy with big business names and reliant on their finical support to get elected.

Over-population? (A euphemism for “too many foreigners”).  I have yet to hear Bernard Grech come up with a viable, concrete, alternative to the present economic model, to stem the influx of more people coming here. As long as there are employees in various sectors who are desperate for staff, they will continue to come.

Unless the PN starts putting its money where its mouth is and promises to take what might seem like unpopular decisions, nothing will change and Labour will continue to lead by default.

Of course, one also cannot ignore the fact that when it comes to putting money in people’s pockets, Labour has delivered – whether it’s the increase in pensions or providing a whole plethora of services for free, these things cannot be easily dismissed. “It’s the economy stupid”, as the famous dictum goes… and with people out there spending, making the wheels go round, everyone is relatively content. Or, let’s say, content enough to close an eye to everything else that is wrong.

Meanwhile, a new political party, Momentum, has seized on the fact that over 100,000 voters stayed home in the last election and is offering a new platform for those whose politics are more towards the centre. They have a good chance of gaining support from those who are thoroughly fed up with the status quo created by the two large parties, resulting in a stagnant political atmosphere where the rights of Joe Citizen are often the last to be considered. Whether they can persuade enough of the electorate to give them a chance is a matter of wait and see.