As Malta tiptoes into the year 2006, the Gonzi administration takes stock of its strengths and weaknesses, before it takes its bearings.

On the one hand, it must be troubled by the fact that in its first year of EU accession, Malta’s economy grew poorer, when compared to the EU average. EUROSTAT, the statistical arm of the European Union, disclosed only a few days ago that Malta’s GDP per capita in purchasing power terms (PPS) declined to 69 per cent of the EU average in 2004, compared to its 2003 standing, when the relative figure was 72 per cent. Malta was, in fact, the only new EU member State that saw a decline of its economic strength when compared to the EU average.

On the other hand, during the last EU summit, Malta secured a net budget package of e455 million (around Lm194 million) over a seven-year period.

The money can be used for different projects and initiatives. If the government is quick on the uptake, these funds will inject the much-needed oxygen to resuscitate the moribund economy in some measure.

Major hurdles

There are other major hurdles in the way. Over the past years, wave after wave of new taxes eroded the competitivity of business and weakened consumer spending power. The middle class suffered a severe set-back, and citizens with low incomes, including pensioners were hard done by because of rising taxation and the escalating cost of living. All this has given rise to disenchantment.

The Opposition has the wind blowing in its sails and is building bridges to provide access to social partners and NGOs alike, in order to listen to what they have to say and to put forward its own proposals

The unvarnished truth is that in a world of cutthroat competition, rapidly developing technology and rising aspirations, Malta, like other countries committed to sustained development, has become much harder to govern during the past quarter century.

After World War Two, Malta was devastated by war damage. However awesome, its problems were largely “domestic”, and their solutions had to be “basic”.

Electoral expectations

Today, the business of government is far more difficult. Apart from the basic problems of providing and maintaining the infrastructure, one thinks of the problems such as holding together the framework of the fragile social services; the manifold environmental challenges; the multi-faceted problems of stimulating and directing the economy; the growth of crime despite the best efforts of the government, and so on.

Our image of the government evokes that of the sorcerer’s apprentice. The waters rise. The apprentice rushes about with the bucket. The waters rise even faster. And no one knows when or whether the magician will come home!

The foremost proposition is that the range of matters for which the government is responsible – and for which Ministers believe the electorate will hold them responsible – has increased progressively.

A stage has been reached where the hungry sheep look up and expect to have a reasonable chance of being fed. The government has come to be regarded as a sort of unlimited-liability insurance company in the business of insuring all citizens at all times against every conceivable risk.

Shifting outlook

Apart from being responsible for the performance of the civil service, the government is now saddled with the ultimate responsibility of the so-called ‘public sector’, which impinges on the lives of voters. Voters will hold the government of the day responsible for what happens across the length and breadth of the public sector. Even if Ministers were to be exonerated of responsibility for the mismanagement of certain enterprises, the government would be held responsible for managing the economy as a whole. On political grounds alone, no government can afford to deny itself one of its main means of controlling – or at least trying to control – the whole economy

Once upon a time – and that is not so long ago – man looked to God to order the world. In time, man began to look to the market and its forces, driven by an invisible hand. Now man looks to the government. The shifts in outlook are important.

God was, and is, immutable and irremovable. The market could be removed or mutated – but only at a high price.

In contrast, the government is removable. It can be changed at will, and it is there and within reach. One blames not “Him” or “It” but “Them”.

Playing God

The final outcome is that with the appearance of free electorates – it is immaterial whether the electorate is mercurial, or is fully conscious of its democratic “power”, or driven by rising expectations – governments now find it difficult to play God.

For one thing, today governments are held responsible for far more than they ever were before.

As the range of responsibilities of governments has increased, their capacity to exercise their responsibilities has declined.

Perhaps the fault lies in our past political leaders and not in our stars. Past leaders have allowed themselves to be over-burdened. In the course of their competitive struggle to enlarge their power base they sanctioned various lobbies, which have grown fat thanks to political patronage and restrictive practices.

Are there solutions?

If solutions there are, they have to be hammered out between the parties in a spirit of consensus.

This may be hard to achieve in circumstances of electoral competition.

But why couldn’t politicians

agree about Malta’s national holiday, about agreed procedures for

strict and efficient enforcement of the law, about the exercise of patronage and the imperatives of transparency?

Unless something is done in an atmosphere of consensus, politicians will appear less certain of their ability to govern or to lead. And the gap between promises made in Opposition and performance in Office, is bound to widen for the successors of Dr Lawrence Gonzi and Dr Alfred Sant, irrespective of their order of election.

In such circumstances, our so-called democratic process would be much like a game of musical chairs. Each time the music stops, it is the tax-paying elector that will be left standing – and the politicians sit breathlessly but uneasily

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