A time-honoured but unbending rule of politics lays down that, as the economy goes, so does everything else. When economic circumstances are tight, the electorate begins to feel the need for change. When the opposite is the case, the electorate thinks twice before dispensing with the devil it has come to know.

The Gonzi administration has been under scrutiny. Its stewardship is being examined, not only against the background of its several promises, but also in the light of its performance.

Nationalist Party spokesmen and their media supporters are, at present, hard put to proclaim that the economy is on the mend, that employment figures look good and that the future is rosy.

The opposition party and its media look at the Malta scene from the opposite end of the telescope.

The hard facts

In between, lie all the hard facts that constitute reality. Shorn of the frills of political partisanship, the hard facts could not be fairly described as exciting.

Set aside for one moment the highfalutin’ pre-electoral vapour, such as the unsubstantiated claims that investment is pouring into the economy at the rate of Lm1 million per day, and the other claim that 6,000 new jobs were created last year.

Electors with their feet on the ground would have sensed that certain claims and promises are meant to hoodwink the gullible and that, in the modern world, the gullible have been reduced to a diminishing minority.

The rest form the solid core of the electorate, irrespective of the political party to which they belong. And they have legitimate aspirations.

Lost momentum

Three years after the last general election, these electors look around them and find that, in many areas, the administration is bogged down in the mire of inertia. Major projects intended to help start up the economy, like the Chambray and the Smart City project, have yet to be launched. Others, like the Mater Dei Hospital and the Gozo ferry terminal, have been far too long in the gestation stage and have developed into white elephants. The whole tourist sector has lost its momentum.x

The outflow of Maltese funds seems to be accelerating. The public sector continues to be overmanned in parts. The government’s finances continue to run in deficit, and public expenditure has not yet been capped. Public debt servicing is a festering sore. Possibly because it is staggering under this burden, the government has not been able to come to grips with major environmental problems.

In fairness, it has to be said that most of these problems did not raise their heads during the past three years. They have been eating at our economic sinews since the government got hooked to a money-no-problem budgetary policy in the early nineties.

The people of these islands still have to contend with a ramshackle public transport system, and make do with an inefficient administrative set-up that has been incapable, after so many years, to deal with the emissions (soot) afflicting a major part of the south of Malta, and may be endangering the lives of thousands.

Electoral confidence

Whisper it if you dare, but this is bound to make an impact on the electorate.

Doctors who, systematically and consistently, make the wrong diagnosis cannot expect the confidence of their patients, particularly if these have already borne the brunt of the doctor’s past inadequacies. Hence the growing signs of frustration on the part of those who have been set back, and the emerging signs of a desire for change.

Change need not imply a change of government, but such a change is as feasible today as it was in 1996.

The desire for change is accentuated by the fact that when the Nationalist Party won the last election, there was no injection of new blood at leadership level. And the old team had visibly run out of steam. It was the team that saw the shipwreck of the ship of state on the shoals of an unsustainable deficit, and whose inadequacies were highlighted by the European Union’s requirement of a convergence programme. This programme ushered in stiff additional tax burdens and austerity.

Wind of change

This is why the wind of change is gathering force. It is manifesting itself even within the Nationalist Party ranks. Major decisions are increasingly being made in haste. Internal dissidence is breaking out into the open.

On the broad national front, the Nationalist Party in government is hard-pressed to appease public opinion that has not been humoured by the sharp rise in taxation, particularly during the last three years. A very broad band of electors has been set back by higher taxes and accumulated price and tariff rises – to the extent that take-home pay has been eroded all along the line.

The unwritten rule of politics is that, as the economy goes, so does everything else. Although politics is unfailingly full of surprises, events seem to be converging, as if in concert, to demand change, and to see that this happens sooner rather than later.

That time is fast approaching and the challenge is urgent.

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