It should be just a year away now, and in politics if a week is a long time, as Harold Wilson used to say, a year can be a dreadfully short time.

In no time at all, we will find ourselves on the eve of the next general elections.

The government plans to get to the elections strong on its management of the economy.

This is an indisputable fact as evidenced by the record low unemployment, the sustained growth of GDP, the reduced deficit, and government debt.

The Maltese citizens will most probably notice more the reduction of water and electricity rates and the ever-increasing numbers of tourists coming to Malta. They may also note the ever-increasing construction going on in all towns and villages.

These claims are all there, although there has not been, so far, any serious analysis of them, not even by the Opposition Party which yesterday came up with some economic proposals which must also be analysed.

Certainly, the government’s claim of economic good times may be good on a macro-economic level but hard to persuade those on a minimum wage, the pensioners, those at risk of poverty. The economic growth has not filtered down to the lowest levels of society and any discussions on increases in the minimum wage get bogged down in controversies at MCESD.

Whatever. Let’s assume the government is right. Let us also assume the government is doing quite well in its presidency duties, now almost at halfway mark.

But the good the government is doing is continually being obscured by local controversies about the Panama Papers and those involved in it, about other ministerial shenanigans, and about a long list of political appointees to sensitive posts for which they have no competency.

The government may say this is all the result of what it calls a negative Opposition, and maybe it is, but the long list of allegations has caught the imagination of the entire country and drawn scorn on the government and its leaders, specifically the prime minister himself for not taking steps to counteract the rot.

The country still asks itself why the prime minister has not shaken free of the grip these persons seem to have upon him and seems to have no idea how his administration would change incredibly for the better if he were to take the bit and act.

He has no idea how he is being perceived by the entire country, even by those who support him, as being entirely in the hands of those who have brought discredit on the government and the country.

Increasingly, the Joseph Muscat of pre-2013 is fading away, replaced by an almost unrecognisable Joseph Muscat of 2017 who is good at EU Council meetings and international affairs, but as for local politics either speaks, as he tends to do on Sundays, emphasizing the positive aspects of the PL administration, or else, especially in Parliament, when cornered by the Opposition, savagely biting back.

When, in a year’s time, the people go to the polls, they will vote according to which Joseph Muscat they remember most.