“The premiership of Lawrence Gonzi will go down in history as a step backward in the country’s political development,” Dr Vassallo said.

“Everybody who contributed to the accession process fully understood that a new era was to unfold in which civil society organisations, as well as ordinary citizens, were to be respectfully consulted, and would be able to contribute more profoundly to the proper administration of the country,” Dr Vassallo said in Sliema.

“The pre-accession consultation has been transformed by the Gonzi administration into a historical deception, and the time that followed has been a profound disappointment of the just expectations of everybody concerned. While Labour misread the times in opposing EU membership, and then being obliged to make its historic U-turn on the issue, the Gonzi administration has done worse, by cruelly disappointing those whose support had been gained on the understanding that politics in Malta would be conducted in a different manner,” Dr Vassallo said.

“The Gonzi administration carried out a pre-budget consultation exercise without giving any indication of the amount of public funds that were expected to be available to implement any proposals that would be made, and thereby showing clearly that the exercise was little more than a public relations exercise.

This was confirmed by the fact that budget proposals were invited from the public in the days preceding the budget speech when nothing could be altered. The public was treated as completely naïve and ignorant,” he stated.

He added that the election of Alternattiva Demokratika candidates to parliament will make arrogant and obstinate governments a thing of the past and oblige any government to respect ordinary citizens.

“It is definitely the responsibility of any government to acknowledge the absurdity of obliging young families to take out 40-year loans to buy a modest home, when there are 53,000 vacant properties in the country of which 60 per cent require minor repairs or no repairs at all. Those who voted in favour of EU membership desired a government that was sensitive to their needs; instead they have had the Gonzi administration inflicted upon them.”