Prime Minister’s social media offensive starts with Budget money bill

The Prime Minister has beckoned his MPs to fight Labour from inside voters' kitchens. Now he is fighting them on cyberspace, channelling voters through the power of social media, even imploring them for their "help" in convincing voters he has done right by them: raise incomes, provide jobs, improving health and education.

But it will be a challenge for Lawrence Gonzi to truly come down to the online community's level and communicate openly with them.

To go by his personal video invitation to mychoice.pn subscribers (where the PN has opened up its social media front), the PM will have to lose the shell-shocked look, animate his speech and make it less obvious he is reading the cue-card below the video camera.

It's a challenge for any political leader to reach out effectively to voters who tend to be younger, prone to question statements and point out inconsistencies, and probably be unimpressed by the North Korean overtures from Labour, if not bored outright with politics.

But both parties - and Labour especially has already latched on to the power of social media since Joseph Muscat took the party helm - are now aware that a significant part of the 2013 (or 2012 election...) will be fought out on the digital landscape. It's where immediate political statements will emerge, feedback and data collected (for example, mychoice.pn asks subscribers to provide them with identity card registration numbers. Why? It's not a mandatory field, thankfully...), and new, non-mainstream media viewpoints on the parties and electoral issues will emerge. The political amateurs, the bloggers, and the onilne guerrillas will share centre-stage with the mainstream media.

Today, Gonzi will hold a web-chat with mychoice.pn subscribers, as part of his strategy to reach out to the online community by using mychoice as a "personal bridge".

What will he talk about? The 'Gonzi goods': jobs, schools, free health, student cash, and other deliverables the Opposition cannot take away from him. But he will be able to answer the difficult questions on Enemalta's €600 million debts, or why he is spending €80 million on City Gate, or why budget cuts have touched upon sensitive areas of health and education when he said they wouldn't?

Held on the eve of the money bill that has been postponed since January, Lawrence Gonzi is not wasting time in imprinting upon the electorate the importance of the Budget Measures Appropriation bill on which Nationalist MP Franco Debono is expected to either put up or shut up after five months of threatening to withdraw his support on government votes.

Gonzi tells subscribers: "Whatever happens, I will continue to be out there convincing voters that the Nationalist Party has managed to raise incomes, provide work and improve health and educational standards in these last years - despite all the problems around us. I acknowledge the fact that there is more to do, but I am also thoroughly convinced that we are the party who can do that best."

"I will be out there - come and lend me a hand. Together we can shape the future."

The near future appears clear, although nothing can ever be discounted in politics: the odds are in favour of Debono abstaining on the money bill, allowing the Speaker to use his casting vote and pass the bill.

Gonzi can expect to emerge victorious, but he will still face two motions targeting his Leader of the House Carm Mifsud Bonnici and the ambassador to the EU, Richard Cachia Caruana. Will his one-seat majority prevail on these motions? Gonzi is gazing at a cloudy crystal ball.