<i>Reductio ad absurdum</i>

So Alfred Sant is adamant that anybody who states that the Maltese people opted for EU membership in the March 2003 referendum and not in the April 2003 election is adopting a partisan political stance! This means that this statement does not reflect the objective truth but only what those on one side of the fence perceive to be the truth. But what about the others on the 'other' side? How many of them agree with Dr Sant about this?

Let us, for the sake of the argument, start off with the premise that Dr Sant is right and everybody else is wrong. Where would that lead us?

In the referendum held on March 8 last year, the majority of registered voters did not vote for EU membership - as the CNI (of KMB and Eddy Privitera fame) has reminded us in a tedious one-page advert published in The Times recently. Therefore, as Dr Sant is still insisting, the majority of the Maltese people did not approve Malta's EU membership in that referendum. Quod erat demonstrandum would perhaps be Dr Sant's rejoinder to this piece of flawed logic.

Yet, in the election held five weeks later, on April 12, the majority of the voters opted for the Nationalist Party candidates and decided that Malta should join the EU, as Dr Sant and the MLP (but not the CNI) have graciously acknowledged.

The pertinent question therefore is: What happened in Malta in the five weeks between March 8 and April 12 of the year 2003?

If Dr Sant is right, what happened was a last-minute miracle pulled off by the PN while Dr Sant's MLP threw away the victory that it had attained, and this in just five weeks - extraordinarily besting its own 22-month 1996-98 record.

Incredibly, in just five weeks, the PN managed to persuade people that the March 8 decision was wrong - enough people to overturn the referendum result 'in favour' of partnership. Had the PN really managed to pull this one off, this was no mean feat. In the short span of five weeks the persuasive powers of the PN 'machinery' were so effective that the majority of the people in Malta voted in office the party that had just lost the referendum. This reversal should undoubtedly mean that the PN and its then leader, Dr Eddie Fenech Adami, are extraordinary, superhuman superheroes!

On the other hand, this 'reversal' shows that the MLP led by Dr Sant must be the most inept, bungling and hopeless political party on earth. After having persuaded the Maltese people to approve 'partnership' rather than EU membership, five weeks later it was unable to persuade the people to follow up their decision by endorsing the party that would carry out what they had opted for!

This is the only conclusion that one can arrive at, if Dr Sant's stance is correct. Of course, no such 'reversal' occurred and to believe otherwise is absurd. Yet Dr Sant keeps on doggedly clinging to his stance even though it leads to an absurd conclusion! His declaration that the 'partnership' proposal had won the referendum provoked the calling of an immediate election that completely disproved his position. And yet Dr Sant soldiers on through thick and thin, acting as if what happened on April 12 bears no correlation with the March 8 referendum vote!

Obviously, he must realise that this is the only way whereby he thinks he can get out of the very tight corner that he had painted himself in when he lost the referendum and did not have the courage to admit it. When the election was announced, he had to face the music: he had no alternative but to pretend that the MLP was going to win since 'partnership' had already 'won' the referendum. Perhaps he only thought of saving his political career... Whatever it was, his absurd stance could only logically lead to an absurd scenario.

One year on, anyone should be able to dispassionately say that the objective truth is quite different from the perception that Dr Sant tried to sell to his party's followers. Anyone, except Dr Sant who has no option but to keep kidding himself and attempting to fool his party supporters or, at least, a good percentage of them. Otherwise, he would have to admit that he led his party to the April 2003 election like a lamb to the slaughter - that he was shouting 'victory' when he knew that defeat was inevitable.

At the end of the day, what this amounts to is the harsh truth that Alfred Sant's position as MLP leader is only tenable if one accepts his absurd stance on the result of the March 2003 referendum.

Paradoxically, since Dr Sant's leadership of the MLP is a partisan issue, this is the only reason that could possibly explain why saying that the Maltese decided to opt for EU membership on March 8, 2003, is a 'partisan' stance! The lessons from the realm of the absurd are sometimes very realistic indeed, for truth is stranger than fiction.

The election for the European Parliament on June 12 will show to what extent Dr Sant has managed to fool the Maltese electorate to save his political skin and serve to close the curtain on this piece of theatre of the absurd.