The coming week will see the Nationalist government and the Labour Party coming up with competing plans for Grand Harbour.

Labour leader Alfred Sant announced on Friday that next week the MLP would present a regional development plan for Grand Harbour which will be realistic and which will benefit the communities of this zone and the whole country.

Dr Sant announced this during a consultation meeting with representatives from a number of organisations from Msida.

But, as reported two weeks ago, the government had been working on a holistic plan for Grand Harbour and is due to solemnly unveil them next weekend.

The past weeks have seen Labour twice succeeding to appear that it came up with the idea and will be the first to publish its plans, although in actual fact the government had been working on the plan for much longer, though it somehow forgot to tell people.

Besides who comes out with the plans first, what will matter in the longer term is comparing the two plans and assess the underlying preparatory work that went into drawing them up and which plan would be best for the country.

Then people will also have to assess which of the two parties, or indeed who else apart from them, is best suited to implement the plans that envisage cleaning up and upgrading the very derelict areas deep down the Marsa and Corradino sides of Grand Harbour and which plans seem to be the most suited for the area and for Malta in general.

This race to come up with a Grand Harbour plan is a sure sign election day is near and that the two parties are gearing for what will most likely be a head to head confrontation.