Politicians on both sides of the political divide will soon find themselves up to their neck in the political fray, as Parliament resumes its work after the summer recess.

Theirs will be an uphill struggle, considering that all opinion surveys attest to declining confidence in the government and in the political process.

The national agenda will, therefore, very likely, focus on renewed efforts to win the hearts and minds of disillusioned or disgruntled electors.

This will necessitate frank and transparent investigations of the real causes of the prevailing disillusion and disgruntlement. Blind political partisanship will not help find honest answers.

There is no doubt that a major factor which contributed to the prevailing electoral mood is the state of the economy. In broad terms, the economy has stalled. In particular sectors, it has been in decline.

In the perspective of so many years of uninterrupted PN government, public finances have deteriorated steadily. The money no problem virus debilitated the economy, and has been the cause of a festering sore in the form of mounting debt and prohibitive costs for its servicing.

Apart from siphoning resources, which could otherwise have been put to more productive use, this has necessitated rising taxation, which, in turn, eroded spending power.

High dudgeon

Whether this was the result of incompetence or deliberate political opportunism, in anticipation of Malta’s EU accession bid, is immaterial.

It is the end result that has left chunks of the electorate with a bad taste or in high dudgeon.

The outcome of all this is bad enough. But it is not, by any means, the one and only black cloud hanging over the head of the worried electorate.

The electorate is faced with a conundrum, which is still more worrying – namely whether the team of politicians who precipitated it can successfully sort out the prevailing situation.

Dispassionate observers know that, while the economy was sinking steadily into debt, the PN government kept saying that the economy was “on track”. When taxpayers groaned under the weight of rising taxation, they were assured that “the worst is over” and that a “new spring” was imminent.

Promises, promises

That the PN government failed to deliver on its promises is bad enough.

What is worse is that it does not offer any credible evidence that it is learning from its mistakes. The change of PN leadership and the appearance of a new Prime Minister do not seem to have produced a material difference.

The PN government continues to rule by guess and by God. It continues to leap before it thinks, thereby whipping up public resentment, in the short and long term, instead of allaying it

During the euphoric Fenech Adami years, it boobed time and again when it dangled before the eyes of the electorate exciting development scenarios, including the Renzo Piano design for the entrance and approaches to Valletta, the Chambray project, a plan to build an administrative block on the site of the Independence arena, a new Opera House and so many others.

They turned out to be figments at best, and instruments of electoral deception at worst.

Things have not changed significantly since the arrival of Prime Minister Gonzi.

Did not the Fenech Adami administration assure the local hunting community that local hunting regulations would not change following the EU accession agreement, and has not the government repeatedly reiterated this assurance ever since, only to antagonise the hunters by telling them, through the Head of MIC, that the government “misunderstood the EU Bird Directive”.

Didn’t former Foreign Minister Joe Borg give an assurance that bird trapping would not be banned after 2008, whereas it is now to be proscribed after that date?

Needless antagonism

Doesn’t this amount to needless antagonism of a major electoral constituency – simply because the government has no time for a “look-before-you-leap” approach?

In like manner, it was Gonzi who ASSURED the Manikata farmers, in March 2003 that their “livelihood will not be threatened”, whereas they have since had their leases terminated to make way for a controversial golf course.

The government made yet another major commitment when it decided to close the Maghtab landfill once and for all. It has “replaced” it with three separate landfills, cheek by jowl with it, expanding the Maghtab territory to three times its previous size to the fury of residents in the northern zone of Malta.

The fundamental issue is one of credibility and confidence in the government, and resentment at the inability of politicians to take the bull by the horns, and take control of the course of events.

The electorate demands results and taxpayers want urgent relief.

They pine for positive results – not promises. They hunger and thirst for politicians who can deliver.

Once bitten, twice shy. Bitten a hundred times over, thousands of citizens are now in an ugly mood.

They have as many scores to settle! But what is to be done?

If and when you dispose of the hot air and all partisan considerations, you will find that there is but one positive way forward.

The sovereign electorate must first decide by whom it is to be governed. This calls for discernment – the people’s mandate should be entrusted to politicians able to govern in the national interest and committed to govern by consent.

All of this is easier said than done. But unless it is done, there is no way forward. The electorate would, willy-nilly, have to make do with incompetence, arrogance, and the depredation of corrupt influences. And it would have to continue to pay dearly, through rising taxation, for its inability to choose

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