University Debate Or Political Pantomime? – The KSU Debate

For weeks now, this election campaign has felt strangely anaemic. Young people, in particular, seem exhausted by politics long before polling day has even arrived. So when I walked into…

For weeks now, this election campaign has felt strangely anaemic. Young people, in particular, seem exhausted by politics long before polling day has even arrived. So when I walked into the University of Malta’s General Election debate yesterday, I expected apathy, scepticism, maybe even indifference.

Instead, I walked into something closer to a political football match – chants ricocheting across the room, supporters drowning out the very politicians they came to hear, and tribal loyalties so deeply ingrained that meaningful discussion barely stood a chance.

This was my first general election debate as a journalist. I think I may have slightly romanticised it over the years; I remember the University debate as one of the more engaging moments of the campaign, arguably the most vociferous of them all, even if much of it always unfolded alongside the noise.

The atmosphere outside initially felt almost underwhelming. Students gathered outside Sir Temi Hall in far smaller numbers than what many veterans of the debate described to me as the norm in previous elections. Staff members recalled debates that spilled into the quadrangle and drew crowds large enough to resemble mass meetings more than student events. In fact, in the very first update we posted as a newsroom, I described the mood as “pretty chill”, a statement that would age terribly within the hour.

Because the moment I stepped inside the hall, it became immediately apparent that while political apathy may be the theme of this general election, this was clearly not the case among this very curated collective of youths.

Even before the debate had begun, tensions were already simmering.

Arguments broke out over permits and access to the hall, with both PN and PL youths giving me the exact same explanation, only with reversed roles: each accused the other of trying to sneak supporters inside without proper authorisation.

So clearly it’s not just party officials pointing fingers at their colleagues on the opposite end of the room; the same sentiment trickles down to its youth. As the twig is bent, so grows the tree, it seems.

That atmosphere quickly spilled into smaller interactions throughout the event. At one point, I overheard a Labour-affiliated student confronting a NET journalist, snapping, “Of course I know you, you plaster your face on every PN video.”

Even outside the hall, two and a half hours later, the tribalism hardly subsided. I overheard a Labour supporter furiously recounting how a PN supporter had questioned how she could possibly be a lawyer if she was “an ignorant Labour supporter”, prompting her to fire back: “If we’re so stupid, how are we still in Government 13 years later?”

By that point, any illusion that the day would revolve around thoughtful political discussion had already begun to evaporate.

As if the ante-prima to the debate was not enough, the entrance of the party leaders did little to improve the mood in the room. It felt less like the beginning of a university debate and more like the prelude to a heavyweight title fight.          

Cheers and jeers erupted from opposite ends of the hall as supporters attempted to drown each other out before anyone had even spoken a word. I could not help but wonder whether part of that atmosphere stemmed from the fact that, nearly three weeks into a month-long campaign, this was somehow the first real face-off between the party leaders.

At that point, I remember thinking to myself: maybe this might still be salvageable after all.

Twenty minutes later, it became painfully obvious that nobody in the room was remotely interested in debate.

What followed was pure sound and fury, signifying very little.

The debate itself was packed with talking points – or, as journalists have learned to call them, soundbites – but very few moments of genuine substance. The format did little to help. The leaders had clearly been briefed on the discussion topics beforehand, time allocations were painfully limited, and the atmosphere rewarded punchlines far more than policy. The result was less a debate and more a carefully choreographed exercise in political theatre.

Supporters from both major parties repeatedly interrupted not only opposing leaders, but even their own, erupting into applause midway through points before arguments had even fully developed. At one point, watching audience members clap enthusiastically at the slightest movement or line, I was reminded of visiting a zoo as a child and watching crowds applaud every time a seal moved an inch.

Despite the chaos, a few exchanges still managed to cut through the noise, although even these often dissolved into rehearsed jabs and applause lines before developing into anything substantial. Abela and Borg traded predictable blows over stipends, credibility, and who was allegedly copying whose proposals, while the other leaders, Sandra Gauci, Arnold Cassola, along with Borg, repeatedly targeted Labour’s environmental record, overdevelopment, and what they framed as failed green initiatives.

Cassola, meanwhile, consistently cast himself as the outsider battling the PL-PN “duopoly”, accusing both major parties of growing far too comfortable with developers, wealthy interests, and political patronage.

Other key moments: Cassola openly identifying a certain “Gordon Debono” as the contrabandist referenced earlier by Abela, Aħwa Maltin’s Paul Salomone repeatedly attempting to distance his party from accusations of far-right rhetoric, Momentum candidate Pierre Schembri Wismayer flipping students off and exiting the building, and Sandra Gauci delivering one of the day’s strongest lines: “Just like my father cleaned the streets, I will clean politics.”

Interestingly, one of the few moments of apparent convergence between Abela and Borg came during discussion surrounding the possibility of constructing a new mosque and introducing Quran-related studies into schools, with both leaders firmly rejecting the idea. The crowd reaction during this segment was among the loudest of the event and the sheer intensity of the reaction during this segment left me somewhat uneasy, particularly against the backdrop of increasingly nationalistic rhetoric across Europe in recent years.

Meanwhile, moderator Chloë Cauchi delivered what can only be described as a masterclass in patience. Repeatedly, she pleaded with the audience to show a modicum of decorum, reminding attendees that they were representing “the highest educational institution” in the country. Her words, unfortunately, fell almost entirely on deaf ears. At times, it genuinely felt as though the only person in the room interested in preserving the idea of a debate was the moderator herself.

After the debate ended, rival groups of PN and PL youths continued chanting the names of their respective leaders across the quad using megaphones, speakers, and waving party flags in scenes that felt less like a university political event and more like a West Side Story remake directed by the major parties, and quite frankly, I could not shake the feeling that what had unfolded throughout the evening was the visual representation of a political culture increasingly driven by tribalism, spectacle, and instant gratification.

And perhaps that is the real danger. Not simply polarisation itself, but the slow normalisation of politics as performance, where loyalty matters more than curiosity and chanting matters more than listening.

Universities are supposed to be among the few spaces where ideas are challenged rather than inherited wholesale, where debate encourages critical thought rather than blind allegiance. But if young people are learning to approach politics like football before they even leave campus, then it becomes little wonder why so many others are choosing to disengage from it altogether.

Perhaps this is the inevitable result of a political culture saturated with endless promises, permanent campaigning, and a society that increasingly rewards self-interest over the collective good. By the time campaigning officially began, many people already seemed emotionally fatigued by it all.

And yet, despite that exhaustion, tribalism still managed to fill the vacuum.

Walking away from Sir Temi Hall, I was left with the uncomfortable feeling that in a political culture increasingly addicted to noise, critical thinking itself is beginning to feel like an act of rebellion.

Clearly, the seeds you plant are the harvest you get.

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