As the celebrated playright Moliere put it: “It is not only for what we do that we are held responsible, but also for what we do not do.”

Power brings responsibility. The greater the power, the heavier the concomitant responsibility.

And as the power intensifies, the stronger one has to be to avoid the deceptively sweet intoxication  that can turn destructive to oneself, to dependants, subordinates and equals alike.  

The transition from power use to power abuse usually happens subtly and often imperceptibly until it starts manifesting itself in the insignificant occasional outbursts, followed by very significant , frequent  expressions of explosive behaviour . 

Eventually that abusive behaviour becomes the order of the day, as the intimidated and bullied, save for a few so called dissidents, cower away into their little corners to avoid being directly  hit by the wrath of what would by then have become an uncontrollable formidable force,  which appears to embrace the  immiscible  rendered miscible roles of the executor,  the prosecutor, and the judge of people's present and future, sometimes even going as far as attempting to change  or distort the past , if the latter poses a threat to the perpetrators aims and ambitions, even by simply keeping the victims  safely anchored to a reality that can sustain them.

This Power bug  more commonly develops when someone suddenly finds himself empowered to change people's lives , is emotionally insensitive to the lives he is affecting, regards humans as bricks in the wall , to be used and discarded as necessitated by his insatiable craving for advancement  , and is convinced that he is only answerable to oneself, and only if  or till that self remains, which may not be guaranteed . 

The Power virus is contagious, can affect people from different strata of society and backgrounds and can infect unsuspecting previously seemingly normal humans. Most susceptible are those who never made it on their own and are jealous of their neighbour who all things being equal, made a life for himself, his family and other families by sheer hard work and perseverance. Commonest method of contagion is being handed power over others on a silver platter without proper and thorough character analysis and assessment of competence and credentials. Aggressive marketing is usually  the medication of choice to be administered in high doses to  obscure , or somehow conceal the effects of the epidemic of abuse of this very dangerous commodity .   

However, there comes a point when the infected individuals become very suspicious and  aggressive towards the few individuals who remain healthy, by having been immune to the temptations of the notorious silver platter .The fact that the healthy ones  remain unwelcome reminders of the gluttony of the others makes them very unwelcome and unwanted. 

As they  try to preach prevention of destruction and  take to  deploring the herd instinct so susceptible to mass contamination and destruction, they are bullied, derided and even blackmailed by impending smear campaigns which would  allegedly annihilate them. They then acquire new titles like 'gakbini ' and  'tradituri  'for standing up for what they always stood for: the rights of families to live a dignified life in a country that can boast clean, transparent, honest, governance or to put it more bluntly, the right of voters to get what they actually bargained for.

These real Soldiers of Steel, the proud, hardworking, principled sons and daughters of the actual Soldiers of Steel that changed the face of Malta in the 6o's, are often sidelined and silenced, because their loyalty remains to their nation and to what is right rather than to changing partisan dogma. To make things worse ongoing poorly veiled attempts are  made to  replace that silence by the sound of the creation of new Soldiers of Steel   who may be subordinate to a political party   or just its leadership,  but not  necessarily to the principles of basic human decency which is the major pillar  on which a sound nation is built.

From where I stand, all of us have to stand up and be counted, and can be Malta's soldiers of steel, when our input is solicited to strengthen what is right and eliminate what is bad.

Therefore if we really love our country, each and every one of us has to pay a visit to the polling booths this time round. We have to vote for sustainable, clean, honest, level minded governance. This vote is as pivotal for Malta as it is for the entire European bloc.