The truce is over, let the battle begin

It's all systems go as the political calendar's most anticipated date is upon us: tomorrow the House is dissolved and the electoral campaign for the 9 March election officially kicks off, with much hype set into Labour's plan to reduce water and electricity tariffs in the very first week of the campaign.

It was supposed to be a Christmas truce to prelude a campaign that would determine whether the PN government currently trailing in the polls would somehow consolidate its 25-year reign, or see a seismic shift in the country's power network with a Labour victory.

When Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi addressed the nation the day after his government was brought down by one of his own MPs, he said his government was "giving back a country that is far better than it was five years ago", auguring the public a politics-free Christmas season.

But as both parties agreed not to hold any mass political meetings, the political events that unfolded during the break made it practically impossible for everyone to switch off their political radar until the hiatus was over.

"I never expected there to be much to the so-called political truce and I was not disappointed," the Times columnist and former Labour minister Lino Spiteri said.

"The spirit just was not there as various entries in the media and comments on the social media showed."

The pundits on Facebook and online news websites themselves seemed to have missed out on the Christmas truce, truly making it out to be a gimmick for the parties to play to a public sense of fair play during the holidays. But not everyone agrees.

"I think the 'truce' was generally adhered to - except for the fact that Labour had an internal election for deputy leader. This, theoretically, was not part of the electoral campaign... In practice, we know it was!" MaltaToday columnist Michael Falzon, himself a former Nationalist minister, said.

"I don't think it was a gimmick. It was a responsible decision and my initial reaction was positive. I am not disappointed with the way things turned out."

Of a similar opinion was anthropologist Ranier Fsadni, formerly chairperson of the PN think-tank AZAD, who said the two major political parties adhered to the truce.

"It was never meant as an agreement not to conduct any campaigning whatsoever. It was an agreement not to engage in polarising polemic that would poison the festivities and undermine Christmas shopping.

"By and large, the parties adhered to this agreement... in any case it would have electorally damaged the party that breached it, since such a breach would have been publicly criticised and resented."

While Lawrence Gonzi managed to complete his five-year term in government, albeit losing a minister and his permanent representative to the EU, his threatened one-seat majority and the scheduled 2013 election still meant that the parties have long been preparing for this year's election.

Falzon says it wouldn't have been in the Labour Party's interest to push government to go for an election before it was due.

"I do think that the date suits both parties. We now wait form the to flesh out their proposals for the future and hope that the ghosts of the past have been laid to rest," Falzon said.

On his part, Lino Spiteri fears that the general election is going to be "snide, ill-tempered and negative".

"The scars and bruises it will yield will take a long time to heal," he said.

However, Falzon argues that all is fair in love and war. "Electoral campaigns are battles in a never-ending war of political ideas. I would be glad if there would be no dirty tricks, but these are to be expected," he said.

Falzon expects the Labour Party to push for "the future" in its political message. "Labour's battle-cry seems to be the 'all the good of the present' without the rotten apples. On the other hand, the PN is in a much more difficult position as it has to defend it record," he said.

Falzon added that most probably, the PN's own battle-cry would be to hammer that "on the whole it was good, and so it will remain with a PN government... opting for Labour is a risk".

Of the same opinion is Fsadni, who believes that a certain segment of voters had opted for the PN in successive elections more out of a "visceral fear of a Labour victory than out of full identification with the PN".

"Certain of Labour's totemic symbols were particularly likely to be associated with the memories and myths that are the wellsprings of the fear. I interpret Labour's change of its name, certain of its symbols and colours to be an attempt to neutralize this fear, in the hope that this will reduce of the PN's turnout," Fsadni says, referring to the softer hues of Labour's once-militant red and the moderation of party rhetoric.

Fsadni adds that the degree to which this strategy can succeed depends on the quality of Labour's programmatic proposals and the PN's ability to persuade this segment of the electorate that the changes are purely cosmetic and the fear of Labour is rational.

"However I expect that the campaign's standards of behaviour will not be unusual or surprising... at this stage, one has to be speculative about the respective thrusts of the parties, since the electoral programmes are still to be unveiled.

"If the programmes contain no great surprises, then I expect that in general, the PN will emphasize economic fundamentals, health and education and how these are jeopardized by irresponsible spending commitments - which it will accuse Labour of making.

"In its turn, Labour will claim that the fundamental difference between it and the PN lies elsewhere: lower utility bills and decision-makers more in touch with social and cultural sentiment."