Malta is in a serious democratic crisis. We have a government that is more intent on ignoring journalists’ requests when it comes to real freedom and safety for investigative journalists.
A government that is more intent on prosecuting and persecuting those who reveal wrongdoing rather than those who are the authors of filthy misdeeds.
A government that is more intent on curtailing the few rights that citizens have when requesting magisterial inquiries than promoting more transparency and citizen participation.
Listening to the Byzantine arguments used by Prime Minister Robert Abela and Justice Minister Jonathan Attard to justify their absurd actions against the rights of the populace nearly makes you empathise with Luke Dalli, who declared he would “vomit” if “Robert’s name” was mentioned.
The disgust felt towards these anti-democratic actions by the Abela government is being clearly shown by tens of thousands of honest, level-headed and intelligent traditional Labour voters, who are abandoning the PL led by Abela, who has forgotten the roots of the original Labour Party, co-pioneered in the 1920s by my maternal grandfather, John F. Marks.
What Daphne had written in her last article before her brutal assassination in October 2017 is even more valid today: “There are crooks everywhere. The situation is desperate.”
To stop this vertical fall into the pits, Malta is in desperate need of a change in government. It is obvious that a change in government means that the biggest party in opposition, the PN, would have to form part of this alternative government.
Unfortunately, however, despite Bernard Grech’s continuous battle cry that “only the PN” can get Malta out of the rut that the Muscat and Abela administrations have got the country into, facts and figures are clearly showing that, while the Labour Party is being abandoned daily by droves of level-headed Labourites, these former Labour voters will not switch their vote to the PN led by Grech.
This is not just my opinion. It is an undeniable fact based on concrete data. Grech was elected as leader of the PN in October 2000, succeeding the quite colourful Adrian Delia’s short-term leadership. Eight months later, in June 2021, an opinion poll published by MaltaToday revealed that, out of an estimated 355,000 eligible voters, 39,050 voters would simply not go out and cast their vote.
Four years ago, it was therefore Grech’s priority to shake those 39,000 out of their political lethargy and make them go out and vote PN.
The country runs the risk of not getting a change of government- Arnold Cassola
Over three-and-a-half years have passed since that first post- Grech election opinion poll. What has happened since then? Well, in March 2022, we had a national election, which turned out to be the first showdown between Abela and Grech. In that election, the Labour Party lost thousands of votes, yet, the PN did not gain a single vote of them. Indeed, the 39,050 non-voters in the previous year’s opinion poll increased to 55,120 non-voters.
This upward trend in the number of non-voters is not stopping. In July 2023, it was the turn of Times of Malta to hold its own survey on voting intentions. The 55,120 non-voters at the national elections in March 2022 rose dramatically to 97,980 abstainers in the poll. Which means that, in his second full year as leader of the PN, Grech not only did not manage to persuade non-voters to start voting for the PN but he actually had to witness their number explode to nearly 100,000.
The number of 100,000 non-voters was actually reached exactly one year later, in June 2024 when, at the elections for the European Parliament, these voters just stayed at home and refused to vote. Added to these, 10,000 voters invalidated their vote and around 30,000 voted for third political voices. The haemorrhage of PLPN voters continued.
The latest poll has been the one by MaltaToday two-and-a half months ago, in November 2024. The 100,000 non-voters of June 2024 became 104,000 in the short space of five months.
It is more than evident that Grech is failing miserably in trying to convince the voters abandoning Labour to switch to the PN. At this rate, the country runs the risk of not getting a change of government at the next election.
We at Momentum cannot take all this lying down.
We cannot twiddle our thumbs as we watch Grech and the PN play Russian roulette with our country’s future.
Since the PN is failing to persuade those abandoning the PL to vote, it is the duty of all of us at Momentum to offer a welcoming home to these political orphans.
We encourage people to engage with us and reach out to us via our website https://partitmomentum.org/ or social media pages.
Whether we succeed or not is still to be seen. It is, however, our duty towards our country and citizens to act and try to succeed where the PN is failing miserably.
Our success would help bring about the change in government that our country so desperately needs.
Arnold CassolaArnold Cassola is chairperson of Momentum.