What the hell do you have to lose?

What? You must be joking! Waste my precious electoral vote on them! Tahraqnix Man!

I wasn’t going around Republic Street conducting my own private opinion poll and perhaps risk getting a black eye in the process. But since I enjoy discussing local politics with a few trusted friends and acquaintances, I sometimes can’t resist asking them whether they’d ever consider voting for a third party. And those italicised exclamations are what I invariably get in reply to my question. However, a certain young lady did tell me a long time ago that she was indeed giving it serious thought. However, she wondered what would happen if a minor political party, defying the odds, managed to get elected to Parliament and, one fine evening during the legislature, decided to hold a PN or PL government to ransom by withholding crucial support at the opportune time.

It seems this line of reasoning is endemic on these islands since Alternattiva Demokratika (AD), alias the Green Party and, for a time at least, referred to as the “Third Party”, has never managed to garner more than around 4500 votes (I think) in any general election since the party’s formation in the early 1990s. Now imagine if today’s numerous (in the thousands perhaps?) cheesed off and disillusioned voters were to take the plunge and cast their ballot in favour of candidates representing not only AD but those other recently formed political parties, rather than vote with their backsides by staying at home. Dare I surmise that at least one of these unique individuals might stand more than a slender chance of smashing to smithereens the monopoly held by the PLN for decades over the country’s highest institution?

How much longer must we have to endure the party in Opposition constantly decry the ruling one for its gross, distinctive and barefaced abuse of power only to engage in moreor-less the same behaviour after the electorate once again bestows upon it the title of “Lesser of the two evils”? I am not dazzled by Saint Simon’s halo. Mimicking one of the functions of a commercial bank; the Delta Bravo shenanigans; paying lip service to our tortured Environment and other acts of hypocrisy stir up in me nothing but feelings of scornfulness. As for Joe Zeff and his Merry Gentlemen, amplified disdain makes itself felt inside every bone of my body whenever I reflect on the stories from the local political scene that have made headlines in the newspapers over the past four years, stories that bring to mind the Pauline statement, “The love of money is the root of all evil”. Talking of evil, it was deliciously rich of Dr Zeff to condemn the contemptible posting on the internet of those intimate moments between two consenting adults when we all distinctly remember his embracing and lauding of a bright spark who was convicted in court of doing exactly the same thing. But Divine retribution has finally caught up with him for I hear that after his landlord put up the rent of his apartment in Antwerp again, he’s about to be evicted since his paltry salary just isn’t enough to cope with this added financial burden.

AD, Alleanza Bidla, Patrijotti Maltin or the Liberal Party bringing down a PL or PN government…? (I didn’t include the Democratic Party since the Extractor-in-Chief of Molars saw fit to dissolve it in a sea of Blue). Don’t tell me we have already forgotten the antics of the Saviour of Malta who simply couldn’t stand Civilised Alf’s guts? (Yep, the same Alf who deluded himself, poor fellow, into believing that it was his political party that had actually won the EU referendum. And look where he is now). Or those of Juliette P. Oscar and Debonair Frank? Another two selfless and meek politicians. Indeed, what supreme irony! For the PLN have on more than one occasion warned of the spectre of political instability rearing its head should we plebeians dare mess with the parliamentary status quo. I, simple pleb that I am, will nevertheless be voting once again for AD. Sure, they aren’t perfect – only God is, right? But at least this party has always remained faithful to its main tenets, namely love of the Environment and promoting the rights of suffering minorities. And if the PLN should come down on me like a ton of bricks yelling, “Hey pleb, have you the audacity to suggest that we’ve done absolutely nothing for Malta and the Maltese in this respect?” My reply to them would be, “What took you so long then? I know, don’t tell me: probably something to do with losing votes and sizeable monetary donations, the latter especially from the likes of CEGA, the Concrete Erections Galore Association.

In the words of a first-class entertainer and real estate tycoon who trumped the established political class in the USA and caused one of the greatest electoral upsets in the country’s political history, my appeal to those aforementioned members of the Maltese and Gozitan voting public is simply, “What the hell do you have to lose?”