If at first you don’t succeed… | Marlene Mizzi

It hasn’t been the most exciting election campaign in history, but the build up to next Saturday’s vote has nonetheless been characterised by all the usual pre-electoral jolts and shocks. Labour has lost a ‘star candidate’ to scandal within less than a fortnight of the election and there are indications that the Nationalist Party is making inroads into the extraordinary majority that propelled the Labour Party into government 15 months ago.

Yet the news for Labour in general – and incumbent MEP Marlene Mizzi in particular – is not all bad. Polls indicate that a recent surge in PN support will not be enough to upset its overall majority, and the same polls also place Mizzi fourth in the race, suggesting (all other things remaining equal) that she is on course for re-election.

Still, I find the former Sea Malta chairperson in a cautiously apprehensive mood. Visibly buoyed by the survey results, Mizzi reminds me that apart from the usual challenges of campaigning, she also faces the invisible hurdle of Malta’s unwieldy electoral system.

“Labour is sticking to its electoral slogan, ‘positive energy’,” she replies when I ask her about the atmosphere within the PL campaign right now. “And polls do give you energy. They serve as a psychological booster. At least,” she adds with a laugh, “they don’t depress you. But I have to be realistic. The alphabet remains an important factor. My surname places me in the middle of the list. This creates an automatic disadvantage, as has been seen in so many elections.”

Mizzi tasted this first-hand in 2009. Despite polling 5,000 more first-count votes than John Attard-Montalto, the latter inherited the majority of Claudette Abela Baldacchino’s votes and consequently overtook both Joseph Cuschieri and Mizzi, who eventually occupied the third and fourth Labour seats respectively. She eventually took her place in Brussels only last year in the casual elections to replace Edward Scicluna. In the process she became Malta’s first female Maltese MEP.

How does she account for her success to date? Mizzi suggests that being a relative newcomer to the political scene has advantages of its own. She points out that the timing of her involvement in politics was hardly auspicious, either for herself or for Labour. “I became a Labour candidate after the 2008 election, which the Labour Party had just lost. My participation was therefore out of conviction, not convenience. I didn’t join the team only when I saw the finishing line. I joined and had to run the race out in full.”

Read the full interview in MaltaToday