Winston Churchill once said famously that democracy is a bad form of government but all other alternatives are worse.

However true, this is a negative approach. Democracy is potentially an admirable form of government, given resolute popular leadership, which sees to it that the voice of the people is expressed in practical, realistic measures.

It has sometimes been suggested that democracy and leadership are incompatible, and that democracy is meaningless unless all are equal. In a sense, this is a fallacious argument.

The people know by instinct that equality is unattainable. What the people want is equality of opportunity and equality before the law. These are the fundamental requirements of a democratic society. A democracy runs best when it is run on merit.

Democracy flourishes when the ruling class is open to all talents, where social mobility is encouraged and promoted, and where eligible leaders rise by their industry, enterprise and skill.

It is not so in the case of political leaders who are propelled to their high perch by the forces of political polarisation.

People’s aspirations

Yet it is from these leaders that we have been expecting solutions for Malta’s current problems. The problems have to do with our economic survival. They are problems that have been building up and continue to loom large in this globalised world.

Malta’s highest priority is to define its particular priorities. To set down such an order of priorities with the consent of the governed calls for leadership.

There is no evidence that the Maltese electorate is ready to put up with greyness for an indefinite time. Experience suggests that, given a choice, the common man does not want to be ruled by common politicians, but by leaders worth their salt.

Democratic electorates do not want greyness, even though greyness has been thrust upon them many a time.

The electorate understands this instinctively. But unless it takes its destiny into its own hands at the democratic moment, it may well be in danger of entering a Grey Age, where bureaucrats take over from inert politicians and create a world that requires all to conform to their specifications.

Weak-kneed politicians may live with this situation. By giving the bureaucrats their head – particularly the bureaucrats who have a common cause with their kindred spirits in Brussels – these politicians may be thinking in terms of their personal political survival.

But it is Malta’s economic survival that is the immediate issue. This is a problem that could be effectively tackled if we were to have strong democratic leadership – one that concentrates on economic growth, job creation and, above all, resolute management.

This involves the incentivisation of enterprise as well as the workforce. And the effective control of the bureaucracy by ruthlessly putting a stop to extravagance.

Weak leadership

Because of weak political leadership, the Maltese economy lost momentum and has been unable to advance in step with its European partners. The local social milieu has been sinking steadily.

The government had been spending steadily beyond its revenue, and survives on borrowed money. The economy wheezes under the burden of taxation. Delayed justice haunts the Law Courts; criminality has raised its head. The drug problem proliferates. Public health is under severe strain. The environment is a shambles – all due to inertia and incompetence.

Things have come to this pass because short-sighted politicians opted to navigate by the stars of partisan politics and their political self-aggrandisement.

While the political leadership was often comatose and overcome by inertia in the respective Ministries, an inefficient bureaucracy was often left to its own devices. It did what it knows best: it tried to act the gauleiter with the common man to coerce him into submission.

The bureaucracy devoured more and more resources and grew fatter by the day, while more taxes were imposed and the debt burden reached unprecedented levels. Weak political leadership often became associated with sleaze.

This democratic failure triggered a drip-drop of confidence.

It did not happen overnight. From small beginnings, it gathered speed and accelerated since the mid 1990s.

The people deserve leadership – strong leadership, capable of focusing electoral attention on the one single issue of national economic survival, with the participation of all talents, irrespective of political orientation.

This is no longer the time for politicians who pay lip-service to democracy but shy away from any attempt to make it function properly.

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