We’ve been hearing it for the past few weeks and, no doubt, we’ll continue to hear it until we vote in the local councils election on 11 April – for the Labour Party, all Labour-led councils were excellent in the last three years or so, while the PN-led councils were horrible; for the Nationalist Party, all PN-led councils were extraordinary, in contrast to the negligent Labour-led councils.

It has been the trend in all the campaigns leading up to a local councils election, and it is no different this time. Probably it’s worse than ever before.

Frankly speaking, we have had too much of it. Both political parties are treating the electorate as idiots, and their behaviour is pushing people further away from local councils. We have had the PN praising PN-led councils who have done nothing in years. Likewise, the Labour Party has commended Labour-led councils who have not performed up to expectations.

This is a blatant attempt at insulting the intelligence of residents, who become more inclined not to vote seeing that the party they support is taking them for a ride. Or trying to.

Interest in what local councils are doing has never been great, and the low turn-out in such elections (when they did not coincide with other national polls) was always a clear indication of this. The parties’ half self-praising and half mud-slinging exercise is making it worse time after time.

This kind of campaign once again exposes political parties who cater for the diehards, for those who will believe anything their own party says. Those who have the ability to think will not be fooled.

It is also further proof that the presence of political parties in local elections is doing more harm than good. I always advocated against the participation of political parties in local councils, firmly believing that, without them, councils could work much better and, most of all, attract people who love their locality but will not go anywhere near politics. The more time passes – and we are now nearing a quarter-century of local councils in Malta - the more I become convinced that they should be free of political parties.

Local councils should be there for the benefit of the locality and its residents, not for the benefit of political parties. Instead, they have become another platform for our bipartisan political situation to fester. They have become yet another occasion in which fingers are pointed at the other side each time something goes wrong.

I get the distinct impression that the minority in any given local council is there to block or hinder the local council from doing its duty, simply because it would not want the opposing party to look good in the eyes of the locality’s residents.

It’s a pity, really, because ultimately the local councils’ goal should be to raise the quality of life for its residents. But few local councils have been successful in this regard, and the political parties equally share the blame for this.