When measuring the successes achieved by our country in the last five years, we definitely cannot forget the infinite number of times our most trusted institutions have had to face unjustified and unsolicited attacks by various exponents of the Nationalist party and their allies, just because the people who lead such institutions happen to have the same political belief as the party in government or worse because they do not have such believes, but still have managed to work well with us.
An unequivocal truth is that these successes have been beneficial to everyone irrespective of their political allegiance or whether their criticism of this government is based on facts or simple conjectures aimed at attaining political advantage; tactics which clearly do not work, as clearly shown by the June 2017 election result.
Throughout this period of time it has become evident that irrespective of your abilities, qualifications or (for what is worth) political belief, working with government or more intrinsically certain key parts of it, places a target on one’s back, making it justifiable for a number of pseudo politicians and opinion writers to unjustifiably attack people.
This has been the case for a number of years within the justice sector, where holders of office like the Attorney General Dr Peter Grech, which in the case of the current Attorney General has been entrusted with this office during a previous Nationalist government, has been the target of numerous attacks only because of his exemplary way of conducting his job.
Other attacks have happened on a number of institutions; attacks which when boiled down, have nothing more to rely on rather than a profound sense of superiority of certain politicians who do not want to understand that elections are decided by the people who see beyond such tactics.
The attempt to tarnish the reputation of any person, let alone that of high profile individuals who hold important public roles is an attempt on destabilising the whole system of government which collectively manages a country on a mandate provided by the same citizens of a country which in any democracy have the right to choose their government through free and fair elections.
As politicians our role should not be that of attacking the person and not even the ideas put forward by a person. Our obligation towards the people who entrust us with their vote is to debate and come up with options to improve on ideas which can make our society a better one.
If anything the attack should be directed against the political class.
It is rather a bizarre situation, for such a small country to have a faction of our political class so strongly committed at undermining the same institutions which in time might eventually be beneficial for their prospective running of the country. The general feeling, coming from different people is that this is a very short sighted strategy which surely is not winning great support but in the meantime is creating irreparable damage to the image of our country out of which our citizens aren’t definitely gaining anything positive.
Even if this tactic manages to fulfil particular individuals’ lust for power, the long term effect of these continuous attacks will leave an unequivocal mark on the immediate and future generations, which we have an obligation to safeguard through our actions and not the opposite.
It has always been our aim to leave a country which is better than the one we have inherited from our predecessors, making sure that our children can benefit from the results of a fairer society, a stronger economy and better environment, thus we have embarked on a number of radical reforms which deserved and still deserve the input of everyone, an input which shouldn’t be aimed at destroying one’s reputation but at improving the quality of the debate to attain the best possible outcome from the discussions ensued.
From my everyday encounters with people from different walks of life I can fairly grasp people’s idea of a good life, which most of the time is very different to what is collectively reported on the media or disseminated on the social media circles of certain politicians and political parties.
The debate is relevant because the good governing of a country is what gives the people the option to focus on other aspects of their life, like enjoying the present whilst knowing that there is a prosperous future for them and their children or enjoying arts and culture as a source of entertainment in a balanced life. At the same time there is a fine line to keep in mind- no honest citizen is interested in propagating negative, destructive thoughts which definitely do not lead to anything positive.
Collectively and individually we bound to stop this kind of behaviour towards each other, if not for our own sake, for that of our children who are innocent beneficiaries of all of this.
I take the opportunity of thanking Attorney General Dr Peter Grech, Commissioner of Police Lawrence Cutajar and Permanent Secretary Alfred Camilleri for their long years of excellent service to the country.