I read with interest the letter entitled The PN needs to lose (TMID, 4 December) in which Joe Cristina stated that Malta needs a change in government simply because of the fact that the PN has been in government for a long period of time. Mr Cristina claims that the PN has indeed exceeded the “normal” alternate period. One asks: what is a normal alternate period and are we here speaking of a change for the sake of change?

Indeed when a country chooses to elect a new government it does so based on the premise that the new government will bring about a real change, a change for the better. A country elects a new government when it believes that the said new government has a serious plan for the country, a plan that will lead to a change for the better in the country.

However is the Malta Labour Party providing all of this? In nearly 20 years of opposition all that Labour could give us is the Pjan ghal Bidu Gdid, not much considering the period of time, is it? Throughout these years in opposition Labour has had to change its position on local councils, on VAT and most monumentally on the European Union. Such changes indicate that Labour realised it had got it wrong earlier and decided to change its way. Imagine however had Labour been in government and gotten it wrong while in government?

Mr Cristina argues for the need of change. Yet let us take a look at Malta in 1987 when Eddie Fenech Adami was sworn in as Prime Minister and Malta today in 2007 when Lawrence Gonzi is at the helm. Malta has changed from being a country regarded with suspicion by the international community, isolated from its European partners, with a failing economy to a country that is at the very heart of Europe, with an expanding economy and a free market worthy of a developed country. Indeed under the PN we have gone from the era where buying foreign chocolates was something we did when we went to Sicily to an era where major international investments such as SmartCity chose Malta over other countries.

Indeed change is healthy, but change is only healthy when change is needed and not when one is proposing change for the sake of change.

Angelo Micallef

Marsaxlokk