We are now well into the third week of electoral campaigning, and Labour is well maintaining the speed and enthusiasm with which we began in the first few days. The warm receptions we receive wherever we go, fill us with courage and it is this courage that will see us through the next two weeks, until the day when the Maltese will, God-willing, elect a new Labour government.

The strength we have today does not come from thin air. It comes, among others, from the courage our predecessors had, at the beginning of the last century, when they started to fight poverty, injustice and humiliation. Although in different ways, we too are facing similar ill omens, most strongly that of elitism; where the few and not all, are recipient of the benefits that the country offers.

We are strong, because we are confronted by a struggle – a struggle for democracy – to provide our nation with the democratic and clean administration that our country so badly needs. We also have to fight the imprudent fact that, with this government anything goes, and we have to strive all the more in order to return Malta to being a just state, built on the foundations of democracy, equity and tolerance.

The electoral panic that now embraces the Nationalist Party is making them destroy whatever is left of the national institutions we had. MEPA for one thing, was supposedly a national institution supported across the political platform for its supposedly noble purpose. Unfortunately, however, what we see today, is that it has become an organisation that is in some cases doing exactly what it was not meant to do. Its whole operating procedures have, in fact, often proved to be faulty and in most cases, somewhat nebulous in nature. Not only that, but the internal mechanism aimed to regulate the organisation – its audit office – was also rendered inoperative and dysfunctional.

The whole issue concerning our environment has clearly uncovered the mask of these supposed environment defenders. The Ramla Bay case was perhaps the worst administrative flop that this government has recently made in this sector. The retreat was bitter for them and a triumph for the Gozitans, the environmentalists and also for the Labour Party, which had clearly came out against the proposed development stating that we would do everything administratively possible, for it not to happen. A similar retreat was that relating to the proposed golf course at Ix-Xaghra l-Hamra.

On the other hand, the environment is a part and parcel of Labour’s plans for a new beginning. In our policy, the environment belongs to all and sundry, and does not belong solely to certain developers, a fact we are supposed to accept by this corrupt organisation. Labour here departs from the point, that all should enjoy the benefits of a clean and safe environment; a balance having to be struck between further development and environmental concern.

These are trying times indeed for Labour; however, the more difficult the political environment is, the more we will struggle in order to achieve what is rightly ours, as Maltese citizens; an administration built on the solid foundations of democracy, honesty and transparency. We will strive to create a nation looking forward in order that its citizens may enjoy work, welfare and dignity ensured by a Labour government – not only different, but better!!

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Dr Michael Falzon is the MLP Deputy Leader for Party Affairs and MLP Candidate on the 2nd and 10th Electoral Districts