The more one surveys the Malta scene, the more one realises that our young democracy is in travail. It is an unfortunate, but obstinate fact, that politicians and their party machines dominate the public debate, leaving only a marginal space for the common citizen.

In Parliament and in the media, politicians rule the roost and their chief preoccupation is how to position themselves for the general election contest. As for the rest, it looks as if the process of government moves from one day’s headlines to the next.

Both the government and the Opposition contrive to dictate each day’s agenda by seeking windows of opportunity and by seeking visibility through the broadcasting media, with each side trying to wrest the initiative from the other.

Ongoing struggle

The struggle is ongoing and arduous. Although it could, at given moments, be intense, the casualty list is never long and hardly significant at any time. This is because there are no pitched battles.

The opposing sides prefer a guerrilla struggle, with skirmishes on different fronts every other day. In this way, the generals “protect” their reputation, and the foot soldiers save their skin – and the costly war of attrition continues to run its course from one election to another.

Meanwhile, the civilian population – by which I mean the electorate – suffers the consequences.

The quality of life of the people deteriorates by slow degrees, particularly in the provision of health and education, the maintenance of law and order, and the efficiency of the judicial process.

The first three services are predominantly the responsibility of the State. The judicial process depends on the judiciary, which is independent, and on the cooperation of the legal profession. Even so, the willing support of the State is vital in this sector.

Long history

It is worth stressing at the outset that the creeping deterioration in all these sectors has a long history and responsibility for the present state of affairs must be apportioned between succeeding administrations.

It is just as important to point out that although ministers write policy and are expected to push and press for its implementation, they depend on their officials for success. It is the ministers who draw the opprobrium. Faceless civil servants, more often than not, go scot-free when things go wrong or deteriorate. And, as skilful politicians flit like butterflies from one topic to another with every passing day, they brush off the opprobrium and also go scot-free!

In this fast-moving scenario, it is the common citizen who suffers the consequences and pays for the damage to boot. The quality of life is eroded, the creaking machinery puffs wastefully with exponential inefficiency, while many of those responsible look the other way.

Inadequacies

Meanwhile, complaints continue to emerge from the hospitals and the health clinics. Medicines continue to be in short supply, and the cost of those available continues to increase. The list of patients waiting to be operated gets longer. There is growing evidence of indiscipline in the schools. Illiteracy problems persist. Parents of children attending private schools are still denied a fair measure of tax relief. The drug problem has become a festering social sore. There are unacceptable delays in the courts. These social sores should not have been allowed to fester.

As if this were not enough, the environment has been devastated by the depredations wreaked by speculators.

There are problems of pollution. The state of many roads is parlous and the public transport system continues to be, in part, evocative of the Third World.

For a large part of the electorate, these handicaps constitute a veritable burden. The electors involved are the cogs of the Maltese economic machine. They are the salt of the earth. They are the wilting flowers in the Maltese garden. They are the people who have been set back and are demanding attention.

The poignant reality is this: the ruling administration has been in office for the best part of the past two decades. During this time, it jacked up the tax intake to unprecedented heights and increased the national debt from Lm86 million in 1987 to over Lm1,400 million at the last count, in order to run the shop. Where has all that money gone?

Divorced from reality

From time to time, non-government organisations and the media raise an outcry on various aspects related to these and similar issues. Each time the discussion is snuffed out before it assumes the nature of a national outcry. Each time politicians insert another item on the agenda of public discussion.

Successive administrations failed to focus on these topics. Much less did they involve, as a matter of policy, all the interested parties, which would have included non-government organisations, trade unions and consumers.

The politicians in charge, more often than not, thought they knew it all. Sometimes they leant on “experts” of their choice.

As a result, official wisdom became divorced from public sentiments and from reality.

The Pharisees in the political temple may have hymned aloud their devotion to the health services, the educational set-up and the social order. But, at the sight of the sick, the victims of violence and of drug addition, and the educationally disadvantaged, they tended to pass on to the other side of the road.

In the health sector, our old, centrally planned system tends to allow backlogs to build up. Delay in the courts is denying justice in its own time. Inadequate schooling falls heavily on young children who come from homes without a single book. The youngsters need a ladder to climb.

The point of all this is not to identify those who are to blame as much as to highlight a social deficit, which is rapidly becoming structural and an affront to our national dignity.

For the overtaxed, suffering electorate change is imperative. It is only achievable if the sovereign electorate summons the will and determination to rid itself of the ancient regime.