Yet another round of local elections is over and the Maltese electorate braces itself in anticipation of yet a bigger contest... The prospect of the next general elections looms larger by the day.
This will usher in a sustained period of electoral introspection, during which voters will not only assess the performance of their representatives, they will evaluate their own quality of life, in the light of their past and future expectations. In short, they will come face to face with stern realities.
Politicians cannot conceal these realities at the moment of truth. At that decisive point, the elector is sovereign. His or her verdict will shape the future.
Investment fatigue
Electors, who are disposed to consider the hard facts dispassionately, know that the Maltese economy has been lying fallow for too long and badly needs irrigation. The tourist sector suffered sustained reverses and the productive sector experienced investment fatigue.
The government lived consistently well beyond its means. It has been slow in resuscitating enterprise, while factories and hotels were closing down. Instead of making a run for growth, it frittered too many resources in unproductive projects. Excessive government expenditure created a false sense of security and, as testified, rather belatedly, by the Governor of the Central Bank, “we are paying the price now.”
While the economy heaved and hawed, successive budgets raised the tax burden, reducing the disposable income of thousands of works and pensioners. This burden weighed just as heavily on the business sector. Thousands of citizens were set back in real terms.
Plethora of promises
In the absence of a revamped economy, there was no running away from austerity measures.
Apart from the difficulty of reconciling such measures with hazardous electoral promises, such measures, at any time, are unlikely to be willingly endured, unless there is an assurance of frugality on the part of the administration and on the even-handed administration of the tax regime – and this particularly so in respect of tax evasion.
The electorate is painfully seized of the fact that the middle and lower classes are with their backs to the wall, and nurse a sense of betrayal after the plethora of promises showered in the course of successive past elections.
This feeling is aggravated by anger at the inertia of the bureaucracy and the immobility of the administration in the face of serious charges involving maladministration and abuse – all hotly denied but uninvestigated, notwithstanding media interest in getting at the truth.
To say the least, none of this is consistent with past promises of an “early spring” and “a new style of government” – or with the many subsequent declarations that we “have turned the corner”.
The prevailing sentiment in the electoral forum is one of concern – all the indications are that Malta is in danger of irretrievably taking the wrong turn unless remedial measures are taken without delay.
Malta needs, above all else, a government that will uplift our economy. Malta had one of the lowest growth rates in the EU over the past years. The electorate is coming round to realise that Malta needs a government capable of extricating it from this predicament.
There was a time when politicians promised to place “the people” at the centre of reform. Many people have come to realise that, after so many long years in office, this government has not yet managed to uplift the economy.
Plans to restructure the economy have proved to be long in loquacity and short of results, as evidenced by the failure to implement a reform in the port.
The tourism sector has struck hard times. Stiff taxation continues to suppress initiative, and has transformed vital sectors of the market to a state akin to scorched earth...
The brutal truth is that, for thousands of families and business operators, the government has had nothing better to offer than a bed of nails!
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