From Dr J. Muscat

I find it difficult to disagree with the insightful analysis you shared with your readers in your leader of 13 January entitled “The KMB temptation”.

However, I am genuinely perplexed when you state: “Why do we not have parties who talk straight about the huge amount of social fraud there is and commit themselves to tackle it? Why are we not hearing anything about cutting down on the size of government and rolling back the State? Or about how the State becoming less intrusive with less controls, less red tape, less bureaucratic snarl-ups.”

Why this perplexity? I ask because these sentiments can be readily found practically verbatim in most of my speeches and in many of Azzjoni Nazzjonali’s articles, letters and press releases (when published).

Azzjoni Nazzjonali, from the day of its inception, has been and remains the only party that stands for limited government. At the core of all our policies lies the recognition that practically all our social and economic pathologies can be directly attributed to an unsustainable and patronising State. This has been brought about by our elected representatives’ increasingly irresponsible tendency to engage in auction politics which, in turn, have only served to foster a culture of dependency that absolves individuals of their personal initiative and responsibility. This is also the principal reason why, though Azzjoni Nazzjonali accepts the reality of the EU, we are hostile to the greater centralisation and concentration of sovereign power by that super-bureaucratic institution.

Azzjoni Nazzjonali is the only party that, day in, day out, has maintained that true liberty can only be achieved when the livelihood of the vast majority of its citizens is independent of the State, leaving the latter to cater only for the truly needy. Azzjoni Nazzjonali has also repeatedly stated that a true democracy can only function where there exists the necessary balance of power and where free speech is unrestricted by political correctness.

Azzjoni Nazzjonali is the only party that maintains that government has abdicated the limited responsibilities that it truly should assume, such as protecting its own citizens, while it has assumed roles that a government has no business taking on, such as subsidising trends that are harmful to the composition of the traditional family. Azzjoni Nazzjonali is the only party that maintains that society is the victim of criminals and not vice versa. It is the only party that maintains that citizens should enjoy the fruits of their labour rather than be coerced into subsidising the whims of the State through taxes that render working unpalatable. It is the only party that believes that our children should be educated in such a way as to grow up as responsible and objective citizens, rather than as brainwashed pawns in an outdated transmission style of teaching. The list of alternative reasoning goes on and on.

In view of all this, it is therefore indeed ironic, or perhaps more accurately a sad predicament of the level of local political journalism, that the columnists that “grace” your paper and others have labelled us as “Fascist” and “Far Right”.

You have rightly described the last budget as a “socialist budget”, but what did you expect? The unpalatable and, it seems, inexpressible truth is that the Nationalist Party is now to all intents and purposes a thoroughbred Socialist party; indeed, some would argue it is further to the left than the Labour Party! Perhaps they should rename the party as the National Socialist party.

The truth is that those with a genuine conservative disposition were left with no alternative but to form a new political party, and Azzjoni Nazzjonali is the result.

The electorate has a simple choice: either to vote for more of the same myopic left-wing policies that have led the country to the brink of bankruptcy and robbed it of all initiative, or else dare to add to the tired mix in Parliament a fresh new voice that is proposing really new alternatives to the nation, alternatives that put the ordinary citizen back at the pinnacle of his homeland’s sovereignty.

Josie Muscat

Leader, Azzjoni Nazzjonali