Longshoreman

"You have a place in Maltese politics," I was told yesterday. The assessment was prefaced with the usual: "I am a Nationalist/Labourite". The longshoreman was giving us a hand in berthing a friend's boat. It was the last thing I expected to hear from him.

Little pleases me more than such laconic statements of respect from people who are keen to state their affiliation with a political rival. It is the most tangible evidence of our success in our most significant undertaking: building a common ground in Maltese politics.

While the sparks fly in the propaganda battles, ordinary people watch and make their own assessments. They are perfectly used to the carnivals. They listen and can make out authenticity from all the rest. They have had plenty of practice.

Labour U-turns and S-bends have made Labour grassroots impatient with their leadership. Nationalist bombast about the last 12 months having been an exceptional year has exasperated much of their support dying for the economy to pick up again. Politics feels like an intolerable extravagance to most people. Labourites and Nationalists have more in common with one another than with their own leaderships.

It is ordinary people who will be facing the music about the country's economic straits. Taxes are for everybody. If the pension system goes down the shute, it doesn't matter whether you are red or blue. If the air is unbreathable and everywhere looks like a dump, sick children and an ailing tourism sector strike at all of us without exception.

In recent years Greens have gained more visibility. Nobody is getting the green story secondhand any more. It is clear to everyone that we have had something to say on the country's economic performance, education, on people's health, on social justice. You do not have to be a politician to understand the Green message which exposes the vital thread which links our quality of life to every sector, economic, social, cultural and environmental.

Yesterday's comment was a statement of solidarity which places Greens in a key position in the political landscape. We can bring sanity to an over-polarised political debate. We can pull our rivals away from the eternal zero-sum politics of yesteryear.

The time is ripe for change. There is a sense of urgency about it. The extravagance of years of useless political battles is inescapable. The impotence of our rivals to get out of their mudslinging rut is made ever more clear.

The pettymindedness displayed in the European Parliament election campaign has detached the other parties' leadership from their following.

Arnold Cassola represents a style of politics that is linear, unflinching, an offer to the electorate which does not assume anything at all. No Green can take voters for granted. No Green will spout platitudes just to be popular. Everybody knows where they stand with the Greens. It is the major advantage of a party which has no need to curry favour with an absolute majority.

We are never embroiled in absurd contradictions because we make no attempt to please everybody all the time. It means that we do not have to fool anybody any time.

It feels so new to Maltese voters. We seem so different. We seem to be real people compared to many of our rivals who have been constrained to bend the facts and seem less intelligent than they really are.

It is a relief to people to listen to Green straight-talking after years of working out the crossword puzzles entangled in the discourse of our rivals.

Arnold Cassola holds the promise of a different way of doing politics. In becoming the first Green to gain representation for his party he will permit our rivals to produce a much better political product.

There is a real hope that we can force our rivals to compete with us on straight-talking. There is a real hope that a solid Green presence will wake our rivals up to the fact that the Maltese have had enough of media hype and virtual reality politics.

He also provides the Maltese with a real option to gain representation in a third political grouping in the European Parliament. Every Maltese knows that it is wise to gain influence in as many political groupings as possible. Arnold Cassola offers the chance to gain representation in a political grouping which is often disproportionately influential.

The Maltese can easily understand this: tiny Malta has the voice of a country the size of France in some EU institutions. With five MEPs the Maltese have 10 times the representation of Germans in relation to population. We can enhance our advantage further by making sure that we elect one Green to the political grouping that is left in the position to decide when the PPE and PSE cancel one another out.

Every Maltese knows that size does not matter. How else would Malta have joined the EU as an equal partner? Every Maltese knows that we have to make the very best we can with what we have gained for our islands. There was never a better time to put away extravagant partisanship and vote for Malta.

Our rivals will describe our electoral gains as a protest vote. Once more they will underestimate the electorate. In voting for Arnold Cassola the electorate will not be voting against something.

Perhaps for the fist time people will be voting for something instead of against, with no fear and free of the usual blackmail. It will be a revelation for our rivals.

Voting for Arnold Cassola is a vote for a different way of doing politics, for economic sanity, for the real pluralism which can get the country around a table to discuss its many problems in a sane and constructive manner.

It is time to decide: old politics or new politics. You decide.

Dr Vassallo is chairman of Alternattiva Demokratika - The Green Party.

harry.vassallo@alternattiva.org.mt