Since Independence, absolute political power has been either in the hands of the Malta Labour Party, or the Nationalist Party.

However, as the adage goes, absolute power corrupts absolutely. We have learnt the veracity of this truism at our expense.

We remember how democracy hung by a frayed thread under the Malta Labour Party regime of the 1970s and 1980s. We saw the Mid-Med Bank being used as a personal piggy bank by Labour Party appointees who systematically authorised loans to themselves and their cronies, which the bank had to regularly write off as bad debts. It was the time when Dr Wenzu Mintoff and Dr Toni Abela felt that they had to speak out against the sleaze and corruption that was rife and the depths the party has descended to; they paid the price by being expelled from the party.

That was a long time ago. For the last 16 years we have had the Nationalist Party. Like their predecessors, for a while, they gave good service to the country. In the fullness of time, arrogance reared its ugly head; they began to believe that they hold power on a perpetual lease. Gross mismanagement became the order of the day. I am not going to narrate the litany of well-known blunders they committed, at an enormous cost to the hapless taxpayer.

We are now due for a change of government, so what are our choices? Do we swap the PN for the MLP and risk seeing history repeat itself?

I contend that this time round we have a third viable option. We need to curb absolute power by electing a moderating element, which will be in a position to rein in the slide of the now familiar excesses and nepotism that so far have been part and parcel of our two major parties.

We need the third party to check abuse of power and

guarantee equitable governance.

Alternattiva Demokratika has within its ranks people of the highest integrity, who can be relied on to keep any of the two major parties on the straight and narrow.

It is up to all of us, who are not shackled by the tribalism and mental indoctrination of the red and the blue to ensure that next time we elect a party, which is not likely to go off the rails, by incorporating a sensible braking and steering mechanism that goes by the name of Alternattiva Demokratika.

Victor Spiteri

ATTARD