The march of time is as relentless as it is inexorable. And as we face the New Year, we do so in the knowledge that this is an election year.

The Prime Minister has not yet blown the whistle – but time will soon devour the few weeks or months at his disposal before he casts his die.

Once the die is cast, it is the sovereign electorate that will take over. Those electors who cast their vote will be masters in their own home, and it is their voice that will prevail.

Politicians of all denominations will henceforth marshal all their resources during the incubation period before the electorate lays the egg. There will be those who will resort to fair means and foul to conjure a feel-good feeling – even if they have not much to offer other than “visions”. Those with their feet on the ground will .be more pragmatic and will fix their bearings on the here-and-now.

Tug-of-war

It is this fascinating tug-of-war that will dominate the electoral campaign that is already ongoing.

Over the past months and years, the Maltese electorate has had to carry the yoke of rising taxation and escalating living costs. Thousands of families and businesses have been set back and have had to struggle for survival. Although official statistics indicate a measure of growth, a significant part of this has been registered by foreign companies, whose profits find their way abroad instead of filtering down to water the rest of the Malta economy.

All those who have been set back by this situation know that the economy is sick and needs medicine to recuperate. They know that it would be prejudicial to the patient, were he to be subjected to stresses and strains and made to carry unbearable burdens. Their experience has first reinforced their perceptions and then transformed them into convictions – all the more so because they know that their plight stems from long years of sustained deficit spending that led up a blind alley.

For them, priority must, therefore, be focused on the patient’s recovery.

The government knows that it has overspent its way into a tight corner. It is offering fiscal candyfloss to the taxpayer and is offering “visions” of marvellous things to come two legislatures away.

It is burning prodigious amounts of taxpayers’ money in so doing. It is aided and abetted by its apparatchiks who come every so often out of the woodworks of the public broadcasting service and certain segments of the media.

Ultimate pragmatic view

Intense fireworks will light up the Maltese electoral firmament until Election Day. But the pragmatic electorate has not been taken in. The impression that has gained ground is that there is far more flash than substance in this conjuring act.

The ultimate pragmatic view is that there is no special cordon around Maltese politics, protecting it from fiddles and flabs – and fantasy. Political sleight of hand is the oldest trick in any bazaar.

When all is said and done, the realistic, down-to-earth situation prevailing in Malta cries out for remedies. Until the economy recovers from an unsustainable policy of deficit spending, and the malaise associated with its unprecedented public debt, it could not stand, unaided, on its feet.

To overtax a fragile economy that is already highly taxed to the point of erosion of the quality of life of the majority of citizens, would court problems of unforeseeable magnitude.

There is a growing realisation that survival depends upon our ability to earn our passage – and that the main imperative is to incentivise our productive forces by relieving them of the oppressive burdens that inhibit them. Pragmatic electors are coming round to believe that Malta must be fit to meet the moment and, at that moment, it must be free to make its choices, not on the basis of blind expectations before the event but in the light of established realities.

Until we come to that moment, pragmatic electors need complete, truthful information. And, as I have repeatedly maintained on previous occasions, the truth should not depend on whom it is to serve.

This is clear enough and, I am convinced, it is clearly right.

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