The summer heat that our island offers is with us, and similarly, increasingly so, is the steam coming out from under this government’s collar. It is a government which after the abysmal record of its nearly 20 years in power, is now trying to promise itself out of the predicament which it has itself created.
The Nationalists’ confusion and lack of ideas are making them re-promise what they had promised earlier, but did not deliver. Now that it is clear that the election is fast approaching and that probably they are in to lose government, they are promising everything; everything they could have done, but that their mediocre past administrations did not deliver.
This sense of panic is creating pandemonium within the rank and file, both in Pietà and Castille. Their spinners are working overtime trying to spin the best silk in order to create an acceptable façade, behind which to hide their gross failures. Their patissiers are busy icing the failed measures that should have started us on the way to prosperity long ago, but have ended up making us in more difficult financial straits. Up to some time ago, they used to blame the Labour governments, but now it is clear that they can only blame themselves, for the mess this country is in.
Like a cornered mouse, the Nationalist Party appears to be in a frenzy and cannot see a way out of its own propaganda, and now it is spinning, not on how much another Nationalist government would be good for Malta, but how fractured the Labour Party is. It is not so ironic, in fact, that all non-Labour media plays the same song, tune, beat and rhythm. Coincidences happen, but this is not one of them. It is a centrally directed ploy aimed to discredit and confuse Labourites and to sow doubts on their party. Indeed, perhaps, they are transposing the happenings at Pietà onto the Labour Party.
But Labourites are not new to this game. One way or another the Nationalists have always found fault with the Labour Party and its leadership, whether it was red, pink, other shades of red, or of a million other tinges. Time moves on and all spins come and go, and although some mud may stick in the process, Labour moves on behind its leader. As in any other democratic movement or organisation, once we elect a leader, we march behind him.
This spin is put on for a clear reason, to waste our time in combating it. Not so. We have been for some time now, moving strongly ahead by meeting all and sundry, those that agree with us, or otherwise; in order to formulate a way out of the overall mess we are living in today. This we do, in order for us all, together, to devise a way to a fairer and more just society. The plans we produce, although ridiculed, are quoted and copied. They provide a medium through which there is a true and meaningful participation, giving the term “democratic participatory government” a true meaning. We have vision, where others have failed through their policies. We build bottom up, while our vision dictates that progress means progress for all, and not for just some sections of our society.
For us all within the Labour Party, there is one overriding factor which pushes us forward, that of a unity of purpose. The purpose of governing Malta for the benefit of all.
The purpose of providing this country, not just with an alternative government, but with a better one.
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Dr Michael Falzon is the MLP Deputy Leader for Party Affairs