Prime Minister and Nationalist Party leader Lawrence Gonzi yesterday afternoon wrapped up the first week of electoral campaigning before thousands of supporters with the first mass meeting of the campaign.

“The moment has arrived,” Dr Gonzi told the cheering crowd packing the Floriana Granaries yesterday afternoon, “for the Maltese and Gozitan people to take their destiny into their own hands and choose who is going to guide the country for the next five years.”

The choice, which he said must be taken with a sense of responsibility, was black and white and lay between the PN’s proven stability and track record and the uncertainty offered by the Malta Labour Party. The 8 March election date, he said, marked five years since the people gave their stamp of approval to Malta’s European Union accession, and, he said, “the choice is as clear now as it was in 2003.”

The PN, he said, should be judged on what it has achieved since then, and the facts clearly speak for themselves.

Delving into a list of accomplishments achieved over the last legislature, Dr Gonzi went into a raft of comparisons between PN’s last 48 months in government and the MLP’s 22 months in office between 1996 and 1998.

The MLP, Dr Gonzi stressed, is the same party now as it was then – made up of the same people prone to the same mistakes.

Since Malta joined the EU on the milestone date of 1 May 2004, the country, Dr Gonzi said, had reaped success after success under his administration’s leadership.

The public deficit had been slashed from 10 per cent of gross domestic product to under two per cent, while the public debt level currently stands at its lowest-ever level. Economic growth, at four per cent, was meanwhile outperforming EU averages.

Such fiscal feats had been achieved before a backdrop of tax relief, with three of the last four budgets introducing no new taxes and while two of the budgets having aggressively cut income taxes.

“There have been difficult times, but the people’s sacrifices have not been for nothing; the results are clear,” Dr Gonzi said.

The country had also achieved record levels of foreign direct, as well as home grown, investment, while tourism has also just emerged from a record year.

Although the international price of oil had left a lasting shock on the country, it had fared well in the face of the adversity. While taking measures to cushion the blow for sectors such as industry and tourism, the government had also absorbed the shock of the electricity surcharge for some 30,000 disadvantaged families.

Further challenges lie on the horizon, he said. Of particular concern were the current record prices of oil and cereals, while turmoil in the international financial markets and the US economy could also be expected to present their own repercussions for Malta.

The Labour Party, Dr Gonzi said, was of the impression the country could be run independent of such realities. The PN, he said, sees Malta facing reality and rising to such challenge with the economic stimulus package announced last Tuesday.

The package contains measures such as an upward revision of the 15 and 25 per cent income tax bands, a reduction in the maximum 35 per cent income tax rate to 25 per cent for those earning up to e60,000 (Lm25,758) per year, giving working mothers a one-year income tax amnesty and a retention of the overtime system in its current

format.

Malta, he said, would still reach its goal of attaining a budget surplus by 2010.

The last government, Dr Gonzi recalled, had created thousands of new jobs. The numbers of gainfully employed, he added, are today at their highest levels since Independence, while female occupation rates are also at all-time highs.

The pharmaceutical industry, which employs thousands of Maltese workers, had been cultivated under the Nationalist government, as had the call-centre industry, from which Malta and now Gozo, with the recent investment by HSBC, were reaping the benefits.

Out of the entire 27 EU member states, Dr Gonzi said, the country had managed to attract the $300 million SmartCity project, with thousands of jobs being created in the process.

Just recently, he added, the Freeport announced it would be employing another 500 workers following an expansion in its activities.

From Malta’s youths to its pensioners and elderly, no segment of Maltese society had remained untouched by what the government has achieved over its last tenure.

The Nationalist Party, he said, had truly become the party of the people.

Student numbers are also at all-time highs, with never so many having been enrolled in junior college, MCAST and University.

Millions of liri, he said, have been invested in the educational system – from equipping schools with the latest information technologies to carrying out improvement works at almost every school in Malta and Gozo.

Five brand new schools, he added, are also about to be opened.

In reference to the MLP’s reception class proposal, Dr Gonzi commented, “We are not a party that believes in making children repeat years of school; we believe in seeing children advance and not be left behind.”

Maghtab, he said, had been turned from trash to trees and is on it way to becoming a national park.

Malta’s health care system had progressed by leaps and bounds over the last four years, with the collective agreements being signed with doctors and nurses, the opening of the Mater Dei hospital, the San Vincenz home for the elderly and the imminent opening of a new home in Mellieha, which he described as a “jewel”.

Turning to the issue of corruption, one of the cornerstones of the opposition’s campaign, Dr Gonzi stressed that over the last four years the government has diligently tackled “each and every” allegation of corruption, and that a number of cases have been brought before the courts.

Every allegation to have surfaced, he said, has been taken straight to the Police Commissioner or the relevant authority for investigation.