I am sorry I have neglected this channel of communications with you for a few months now. There are a few reasons for this, but the main one is that time moves differently in a campaign. Eight weeks compress easily to feel like a couple of weeks, and this is exacerbated by the sinking feeling that you will never be able to do everything you set out to do in a campaign.
Short-term, quick-fire content and rebuttals take over from the deep-thinking, long-term and long-form approach that I favour. As I rush from one meeting to another to a debate, to taking photos and editing videos, to fundraising and managing volunteers, it is difficult to sit down and write for the sake of writing.
Like me, you might be following the headlines extremely closely this week as a former prime minister of Malta is to face criminal charges. Reading the Times of Malta report on the 24 people facing charges I inevitably think of how small Malta is – I must have brushed past one of them at a rugby party or game 12 years or so ago – 24 years ago a sleepover at another’s house as I was a childhood friend of his daughter – and there’s that one time I shook Joseph Muscat’s hand after the introduction of legal gender recognition in Malta in 2015.
Surely, in Malta, the theory of six degrees of separation is quickly knocked down to no more than three. Where friends-of-friends will continue to benefit before the common good. Where local councils become the customer care centres of the government, cheques are sent out mere weeks before an election, and favours are exchanged for votes.
This makes for a challenging campaign environment. One where ideas are not discussed, but people are. Where debates circle around local issues, and candidates have little understanding of EU politics. While we don’t need to be EU experts to stand for a seat at the European Parliament, our proposals should look beyond the shores of Malta to the EU as a whole.
Are you a racist? do you have an egg-throwing-gag to pull out of your pocket? Will you blaspheme during a debate? Then no worries, the press and their cheap click-bait cousins will be all over you. Put your principles, if you ever had any, aside for a spot on Labour’s list to get free lavish campaign events set up for you, more time to debate, and billboards with your face on them. The majority of Labour’s candidates also have an endorsement of their campaigns by Joseph Muscat or his wife… no comment. While candidates for the PN have to be happy with Von der Leyen’s appeasement of the far right.
In the meantime, I shuffle from energised to disenchanted. I understand disillusioned voters more than ever before. But we cannot give up. The time to send a message to the PLPN establishment is now.
As ADPD – The Green Party we are presenting the most progressive gender-balanced list in Malta’s history. With two women (Sandra and Rachelle), one man (Ralph), and me – a non-binary trans person. We are all for the decriminalisation of abortion in Malta, and want to protect the rights of all workers, regardless of the colour of their skin or their passport. We recognise that the climate crisis is one of the main challenges of our generation, and we need an EU and global approach to tackle it.
Our messages on these important issues in Malta are a strong contrast to the anti-women rhetoric; the scapegoating of migrant workers and fearmongering about migration; and the green washing of gas pipelines and polluting back-up generators.
And in a system that pushes for competition between all individual candidates, we are doing our best to work together. That’s why I’ve attended almost all the debates that Sandra and Ralph have participated in, taken their photos and videos, and edited reels for them. That’s why I’ve accompanied Rachelle to interviews, and why we’ve created content together.
As much as the endless corruption in Malta makes me want to shut down and isolate from politics to protect my mental health, I recognise that the only way forward is as a community. To win we must join each other, support each other, learn from each other, and console each other.
Contrary to popular narratives about politicians, I can attest that there’s nothing like running campaigns like ours to make you humble and make you understand that meritocracy is a myth.
There’s the hours of voluntary, free, work that no one ever acknowledges – there’s the silence in a room of youth after I presented my vision for a queer-inclusive future – there’s the lack of donations coming in while corrupt Labour raise half a million in a day – there’s the job I lost out on because I am too politically active – there are the systemic barriers for small parties in Malta that result in a lot of time wasted that could be spent campaigning – there’s the sidelining, the patronisation, the sexism, the misogyny, the transphobia.
But there’s also you, dear readers who have made it all this way. There’s the voter who hugged me at the skatepark and thanked me for giving her someone to vote for and believe in. There are the young people who reach out to volunteer. There are the friends who sit on calls for hours to help me practice for debates and interviews.
And there are those of you who are willing to donate to our campaigns, to help our message reach as many people as possible.
Thank you for being with me on this journey.
First sent out as a newsletter on 9th May 2024.
MJ Tolu 
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