A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to interview Labour MEP Alfred Sant on our programme INDEPTH.

Apart from the love for books and the pleasure of reading and writing, I have little else in common with Dr Sant. Socialism, for him, is the best political philosophy whereas I tend to think more like Winston Churchill did, that socialism is “the philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance and the gospel of envy; its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.”

Of course, our major disagreement is on the way he views the European Union and Malta’s relationship with the EU. He campaigned for Malta to stay out of the EU and instead go for a kind of partnership that I could not comprehend, and I still cannot understand his reasoning when he says that the 13-year experience in the EU brought with it more disadvantages than benefits for Malta.

But there is one thing I give him great credit for.  And this is that in his 16 years as leader of the Labour Party, with nearly two of them also as Prime Minister, Alfred Sant cleaned the PL of its violent elements and unscrupulous characters that had given it such a bad name in the 1980s. Unfortunately, they have been allowed to make a return with a vengeance since he left the party leadership in 2008. The violence may not be physical these days, but there are times when psychological and moral aggression is worse.

There’s more. When one compares Alfred Sant’s style of leadership to that of Joseph Muscat today the difference is there for all to see. There is no doubt, for example, that with Alfred Sant as PL leader Konrad Mizzi would have been told to go the moment the Panama Papers scandal broke out. In the weeks that followed the revelations that shook the whole country and are still reverberating today, Alfred Sant had said Mizzi should resign.

He confirmed his stand during INDEPTH. When I asked him a question on whether he would have forced Mizzi to resign, his reply was that different leaders have different ways of leadership, which to me meant that, if Dr Sant had been PM, Konrad Mizzi would not be part of his Cabinet, with or without portfolio.

I had strong reservations about Alfred Sant’s policies and his idea to remove Value Added Tax, but he did not butcher his promises the moment he was elected to power, as Joseph Muscat has been doing with his pledges of meritocracy and transparency. With Alfred Sant, you got what you saw; with Joseph Muscat it’s a totally different story, as his middle name must be ‘deception’.

Alfred Sant would never have tolerated corruption to rise to the unprecedented levels we have in the country today. Corruption does not necessarily entail bribery, fraud or money exchanging hands; it is the dishonest and unethical conduct of people who are entrusted with a position of power or authority. Corruption is neither necessarily illegal; nepotism, clientelism and favouritism, for example, are listed as methods by which people in power can be corrupt. We have had too many examples of this in the last four years.

In a nutshell, Alfred Sant would not have allowed his administration to be littered with the growing number of scandals that have hit Joseph Muscat’s government. Comparing Dr Sant’s leadership qualities with those of Joseph Muscat, Dr Sant’s tenure as PL chief should be seen in a very different light today.