The main reason why the Labour Party has a gargantuan task ahead of itself is that come 5 June it will not only be voting for what it perceives as the most popular among contestants to run the party, but it also has the responsibility of electing somebody who can convince us that he or she can make the best prospective Prime Minister of Malta and beat Lawrence Gonzi at his own game of leading the country. Within five years or even less.

I agree wholeheartedly that one cannot dream of running the country efficiently before convincing one and all that one can first run the party itself efficiently, through an effective and ongoing unification process of inclusiveness that cannot afford to be merely

cosmetic.

But by the time we get to vote by whichever system the party might choose to embrace, we have every right to know in advance not only what the candidates really stand for and what their true credentials really are but more important than that, how they plan to unify and modernise the party and reinvigorate it. At the same time they have to convince us that they have all the necessary ingredients to ensure that we will not continue – under their prospective leadership of the country – to lag behind as badly as we did on election eve in a Centre for European Reform comparative analysis of EU member states’ performance in the environment, employment, competitiveness, innovation and research and development areas.

One might argue – quite rightly – that the Lisbon Scorecard VIII that I mentioned also showed how much other EU member states still have to do to encourage innovation, bring people into the workforce, create better quality jobs, cut greenhouse gases and meet their many other Lisbon targets. As someone argued recently no country, big or small, can afford to resort to complacency at a time “when a global downturn is set to test Europe’s economic resilience”.

The Labour Party has just launched its own internal inquiry whereby a number of highly qualified persons have been tasked to carry out an independent study meant to analyse the recent general election results.

Now is the time for all those who have criticism to make and even suggestions to put forward, to air their views either personally or in writing, to the commission without hiding under the guise of anonymity.

As for myself, I have already written to meet this commission’s members. I look forward to doing so in the near future.

Whatever the outcome of the independent report I sincerely hope that this commission will not only pinpoint in the most clinical and dispassionate of ways all that went wrong or could have been done better during the campaign, but also ideally make recommendations on what qualities it should take to ensure that whoever is elected leader can ensure that certain past pitfalls are avoided while ensuring that she or he has the ability and skills to also build on the party’s existing strengths.

We need a leader who can put us at the forefront of the country with the best policies, be it in the environmental, health or educational or job creation sectors as well as in meeting the challenges of a multi polar world.

The new leader must convince us that he or she can tackle globalisation head on, not in a confrontational way but in order to ensure that we can tap the opportunities and minimise any threats that it might pose. Merely rubbishing globalisation as a concept will leave us living in a time warp, further distanced from present day realities. Obviously this must be done from the perspective of a strongly committed modern social democratic party that has the centre ground firmly in mind.

We must go to the electorate confident that the people of Malta do not only want change but also a change of Prime Minister, confident as they should be that the Labour Party can offer such change simply because it has the best policies and the best leadership it can muster under present circumstances.

We need to elect a leadership that can engage in one to one contacts not only with the underprivileged and the downtrodden but also with the social partners, civil society, the NGOs and the upwardly mobile segments of society, particularly those who have made or are making headway on their own steam.

It must be a tech savvy leadership that can connect with both the younger generation – including today’s 13-year-olds, who will be voting for the first time in 2013 – as well as middle aged people and senior citizens who by right expect to enjoy a better quality of life in their twilight years.

In the final analysis it must be a leadership that can take us to the polls whenever Lawrence Gonzi might choose to call a general election, capable of basing our campaign on our strengths without playing into the PN’s hands of allowing the Nationalist Party to instill an aura of fear, doubt and uncertainty about our leadership qualities and even more so about our policies and plans for the future.

We need to elect a leadership of communicators who can engage effectively with those who have traditionally felt that the Labour Party was alien to them. This can be done solely through constant and well-nurtured bridge building rather than through last-ditch exercises and patchwork efforts by which time perceptions might have already been formed or further entrenched.

One might argue that this is a tall order indeed, but unless we think boldly and radically on these lines we might as well brace ourselves for even more defeats and further changes at the top in the years to come.

Our leadership must be astute and clever enough to engage better with the independent media, without suffering from a persecution mania but also without allowing any of them to suck the Maltese voters into the vortex of spin and downright lies that will no doubt continue to be fomented in quarters close to Castille and Pieta.

Just for the record the key elements of the Lisbon targets are: innovation, liberalisation, enterprise, employment and social inclusion, and sustainable development and the environment.

Any of the candidates who can convince us that he or she will reverse the tide of having Malta score poorly on practically every indicator as it has done at least so far, deserves our vote.

For the benefit of those who might think that the Centre for European Reform is some form of front organisation infiltrated by MLP acolytes forget it.

It is a highly respectable think tank devoted to improving the quality of the debate on the European Union with ideas from Britain and across the continent to discuss the many political, economic and social challenges facing Europe.

After all the internal debate in our country should no longer be Malta and the European Union, but Malta in the European Union. As it should have always been from day one since we joined the EU.



e-mail: leo.brincat@gov.mt



Leo Brincat is a Labour MP elected on the 9th district.