The huge multitude that flocked to Valletta on Sunday can be described as the march of the unbelievers.

They do not believe in whatever Joseph Muscat says.

They do not believe in anything that the key figures of the Muscat administration say.

They do not believe anything can be done except a defeat at the polls. The situation is now far too gone to be redressed.

In fact, we can say that the 2018 election campaign started on Sunday. This is also clear from the speech by Opposition leader Simon Busuttil.

To those who have lived through the terrible 1980s, this seems very much déjà vu. The opposing sides refuse to discuss, to negotiate. There is no leeway between them. We are in for a year of mass meetings and, worse, a year of intransigence.

We do not want to blame both sides equally: we are in the present tense situation because of the government’s inept and its permissive attitude to corruption in its midst.

We are in the present situation because Konrad Mizzi acquired a company in Panama as soon as he was elected to government.

We are in the present situation because Prime Minister Joseph Muscat has steadfastly refused to make Dr Mizzi face the consequences of his actions and resign.

We are in the present situation because a minister, faced by allegations he visited a brothel in Germany while on government duty, sued the journalist who made the allegations and asked the court to issue a garnishee order on her assets.

We are in the present situation because the government, rather than calm things down and seek dialogue, has characteristically exacerbated the issue by issuing a draft bill which aims to regulate news portals on the Internet.

On Sunday, the government got its reply. The mass of people who flooded Valletta’s streets and squares was the answer by an angry section of the population to the present administration.

It was also the reaction to so many instances where government rode roughshod over people’s sensibilities: from the deal whereby the prime minister hired his own car, to the intake of so many party loyalists in what were called by a misnomer of misnomers positions of trust. People have had enough and on Sunday they expressed their anger.

Now if what people care about is the price of water and electricity, and once this government reduced the bills, then all was right, then the people in Valletta on Sunday quite clearly do not represent the population of Malta. Or do they?

A year before the election, time is running out for the government and increasingly, people are getting angry. The government has a very limited timeframe to turn this around. If instead it continues to go on the offensive and exacerbate tensions, it has only itself to blame if it is met by an equal and opposite reaction.