March has become synonymous with local council elections. It is a time when political parties gauge their strengths in one third of our localities. It is also when supporters use protest votes to punish their party, especially when that party is in government.

Every March we are regaled by the red and the blue, with a dash of green here and there, fighting for township seats. But of course there’s no ideology involved; just two opposing banners and an aspiring third, fighting over who should repair the odd road and supervise wardens collecting their own salaries and more.

This is our former prime minister’s brainchild: Lilliput mimicking high Lilliputian politics.

This is the reason why Labour was against partisan political involvement in local councils. When Labour initially preferred not to participate as a party it had foreseen this state of affairs: partisan elections every year, mini-parliaments that squabble on partisan lines, the exclusion of minority councillors by the majority, and the non-involvement of truly capable people who prefer to stay out of the partisan fray (with little chance of being elected on the independent ticket, anyway).

At the time, our former prime minister saw Alfred Sant’s proposal as a political game that he could win hands down. So he played humbug politics and pushed forward with his usual smirk, unleashing his whole party machinery into the Local Councils fray against independent candidates.

Yes, it was a victory for our former PM. The type he could brag about in terms of: Ha ha, I knew he’d have to give up on this – smirk, wink, nod…

Eventually, Labour had no option but to participate since the Nationalist Party was taking over, with its henchmen pushing the government’s agenda. The field had been politicised and most independent candidates, with no financial means to compete with the PN media machine and their hardcore voters, had to depend on Labour votes. Thus the independents were generally considered to be Labour candidates. This was the natural effect of political imbalance.

This is why Labour started to take a strong interest in Local Council elections and to participate wholeheartedly in a well-organised way. It was evident that Fenech Adami’s legacy was here to stay.

Since then, Labour has won many localities and its track record has been good. Most localities with a Labour majority are proving to deliver far more efficiently than those with Nationalist majorities, even though they often find themselves hindered and delayed by government departments.

PN counsellors represent their party’s government, not their electors. Consider the Marsascala recycling plant. When PN councillors face this hot issue, they can have little sympathy for the local residents. Given the choice, they would rather infuriate their electors, than their party bosses.

Clearly, Labour offers a better alternative with better-administered localities.

Three years ago, the Nationalist Party had a good run over Labour in these localities. It was Referendum Day and the blues and the europhile die-hards were all out to vote Yes for EU membership. Meanwhile, Labour turnout was low, with a partial referendum boycott and hardly an effort in voter mobilisation.

This time, the PN knows it will not pull it off. But our prime minister is not deterred, as he presses on with his stage-managed campaigning. One would expect him to have better things to do than persevere on behalf of his party’s candidates. But that’s the way things are. Every year, our prime minister wastes two months on electioneering for township seats.

Maltese language: relegated to “third or fourth”

Some months ago I had written about our government’s attitude to the Maltese language in European Schools.

Given that there are no Maltese sections, Maltese pupils are placed in the English sections. So you might expect that when the Maltese language is taught from next September, it would at least be considered as a second language for Maltese pupils, if not the mother tongue.

Nothing of the sort. It is now official. I received a letter from the school telling me “Maltese pupils who wish to do so can choose Maltese as Language III or Language IV…”

I will not bother you with the complexities of European Schools, but this decision means that the Maltese language will neither be considered as the mother tongue for Maltese pupils, nor as a second language (known as the “vehicular language”).

This means that pupils arriving from the Maltese primary level are expected to be proficient in French (or German) since this, for them, is “Language Two”. Indeed, they would have to sit for exams in History, Geography and social science in French, irrespective of the fact that their natural second language is English not French.

So who proposed that Maltese be relegated to Language III or IV and not be considered as a mother tongue?

It all points to the Maltese government. Indeed it appears that the education ministry has lost all sense of reality. When, on 14 February, education minister Louis Galea replied to a parliamentary question put by Carmelo Abela MP (MLP) who asked why Maltese was given Language III status, he replied that “parents of Maltese children (had) asked for their children to be taught Maltese and English as Malta’s official languages, and another language from among French and German”.

I do not know what Minister Galea or his civil servants had in mind, but this is not how it works. In any case, this only meant that French or German would be the “vehicular language”, that is Language Two.

So where does that leave the Maltese language?

I know how to count – the school says it is III or IV. No wonder one of the directors of the European Schools had described our government’s proposal as “weird”. For never was a mother tongue given such short shrift by any government. And this was before Louis Galea assured us of his ministry’s sanity.

Where are the defenders of the Maltese language when we truly need them? What says former MIC head Simon Busuttil, whose children also attend one of these schools? So much for Maltese being recognised as an official EU language.

One thing I’m certain of: I was never asked for my preferences concerning my three sons who attend one of these schools.

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Sharon Ellul Bonici is a Labour Party candidate currently working in the European parliament in the political field.