So, after months and months of speculation, the election date was finally announced. I heard the news about five minutes before I was leaving the house and, by the time I got to Marsa, around 20 minutes later, there were already signs and posters up signalling that we had entered the twilight zone that is pre-election fever.

Given what the country has been through over the last few years, it’s sadly ironic that my first reaction to seeing workmen working so diligently on a Sunday was slack-jawed, bitter wonder. Apparently, all we need to do to get people to put their back into it is hold an election every few months. It’s never too late to adopt the Italian model.

I sat with my friends wondering why I wasn’t more anxious about the news and everything that would come with it, and I quickly realised that I was choosing to focus on the workmen I saw and not what was about to happen in the country because, well, if the polls are to be believed, nothing is going to change either way.

This election is going to be yet another footnote in our history, where we could have done things differently but won’t.

Throughout the years in which I have been writing, I have gone from hot anger to cold dismay, to tepid indifference. I haven’t just plodded through the five stages of grief: I’ve zoomed back and forth between them like I’m on some possessed merry-go-round.

Much of my writing is motivated by disbelief at where we’re at and shock at how nothing will move people to see past the tip of their noses.

We have had murder, corruption and uncovered more shady situations than you can shake a silk stocking at. Almost every day in the past five years has brought with it fresh scandal. And, yet, despite all this, the polls keep showing us that the country does not seem ready to let go of this toxic relationship. Not only is it not ready to end things but it’s also actively planning a renewal of vows in an over-the-top ceremony.

Almost every day in the past five years has brought with it fresh scandal- Anna Marie Galea

I speak to people who are in the same age group as I and we feel as lost as ever. Not knowing who to vote for, disbelieving one faction but not having enough confidence in the other, wanting to vote for someone different but also being painfully aware that those alternatives don’t have enough strength to be able to actively represent us.

With a month to go, many of us are weighing the options of going to the polls at all but what is the alternative? A country where one party secures a two-thirds majority and gains absolute power? That doesn’t even bear thinking about – a one-party state in everything but name.

No democratic country should ever allow such power in the hands of so few. It’s bad enough that we clearly can’t keep our politicians in check now, let alone if the situation gets cemented by our votes or lack of them.

It’s a bleak situation we have on our hands and one which doesn’t seem set to be changing any time soon. Our politicians keep failing us and, despite many people maligning this, nothing evolves. Here’s to a safe, somewhat clean election run-up; God knows, most of us don’t have the energy for anything else.