Ready, set, continue...

The election campaign officially starts tomorrow but political parties have been revving up their engines for months. Kurt Sansone takes a look at the long road ahead. President George Abela will raise the curtain tomorrow on an electoral campaign that has been revving up backstage for months. The President will do his constitutional duty and dissolve Parliament, officially declaring an election for March 9. At almost nine weeks, this will be the longest general election campaign since 1987 and one that will put the political parties’ resilience to test. Surveys conducted by The Sunday Times and confirmed by other pollsters put the Labour Party well ahead at the start of the campaign. The last survey commissioned by this newspaper in October saw the PL enjoying a 12-point lead over the PN. A more recent poll by Malta Today carried out after the election of MEP Simon Busuttil as PN deputy leader has seen the gap narrow but not enough to put the parties neck and neck. Godfrey Baldacchino, a visiting lecturer of sociology and chairman of the Centre for Labour Studies at the University of Malta, believes the gap in voter intentions will narrow as election day approaches. But he...