Sunset Exiles by M.J. Camilleri published by Merlin.

Queer: 0
Cohesion: 5/5
Political: 4/5
Laughter: 3/5
Tears: 4/5

I'm going to keep it light for this month in terms of word count and read the recent translation of Audre Lorde's uses of the erotic, the erotic as power.

Some words learned:
- fonqla. Someone who is hard to please.
- Nugrufun. Soot.
- żagħbil. Idling about.

And some I can't find in online dictionaries: mkagħbrin, agħafa, mmantra.

Ħaf, to wander. Huma jħufu, they wander / prowl / go about aimlessly.

I actually encountered this word before in an essay on aphroconfuso.mt and misremembered it as another way to say 'fucking'... But it was actually used as 'cruising' ... In the gay sense. Which explains the misremembering. 🚢

On Thursday I will be in a debate with the following candidates:

1. Marija Sara Vella Gafà, PL
2. Daniel Attard, PL
3. Peter Agius, PN
4. Miriana Testaferrata DeNoto, PN
5. Arnold Cassola, independent
6. Ivan Grech Mintoff, ABBA
7. Terrence Portelli, Imperium
8. James Ryder, independent

Times of Malta has a pretty good round up of who's who in these elections, except for an independent candidate none of us know anything about. timesofmalta.com/article/who-...

In 2019 8 parties presented candidates, this year its 5.

PN, PL and Imperium Ewropa remaining the same.

AD+PD who have merged, after presenting two separate lists in 2019.

Alleanza Bidla Who rebranded to ABBA and started a new party.

Volt are new.

There are more independent candidates, 13 now compared to 5 in 2019. 3 of those who stood in 2019 are standing again.

This will be the main story this election. As we will analyse what this might mean for the final vote in the next month.

Compared to 5 years ago, there are 6 candidates less overall. With the main difference being in PN (10 in 2019), PL (14 in 2019) who are presenting more restricted lists. This might favour them in STV as there would be less division of 1st count votes within their own lists.

There's around 66% of the candidates that I would consider centre-right to extreme-right on a Maltese scale.

On the centre-left to left-wing scale we are considerably fewer.

Amongst the so-called 3rd parties and independents, ADPD remain the biggest party.

Amongst the independent candidates we see most fragmentation of the small right and extreme right wing parties. With former candidates and party members running on their own.

ABBA (EPCM) - 2 candidates (50% women)
ADPD (Greens) - 4 candidates (50% women, 25% non binary)
Imperium Ewropa (Fascists) - 2 candidates
Partit Laburista (PES) - 9 candidates (22% women)
Partit Nazzjonalista (EPP) - 8 candidates (50% women)
Volt - 1 candidate
Independents - 13

Good line for Eickhout:

"Four years ago, VdL said that the Green Deal was her Man-on-the-moon moment. Can you imagine JFK coming back four years later and saying 'halfway to the moon is good enough'?"

(Also somewhat unfair to VdL I think, she's not arguing to stop)