People wanting to invest their money are constantly reminded that the past is not a guarantee for the future. Companies providing financial services to potential investors, by law, must inform their clients of the potential risks that they are taking when they invest their money.
When an election is approaching, the political parties involved have the habit of reminding the people of the achievements that their party reached when in government, and compare it with the bad decisions that were taken under other administrations.
They conveniently forget their own shortcomings as they try to expose those committed by the other parties.
What is most important however is not what happened in the past, but what the political parties are proposing for the future. And, in this respect, both the Nationalist Party and the Malta Labour Party have come up with their own ideas how to move forward.
Needless to say, the PN accuses the MLP that some of its proposals have already been implemented by the Nationalist government. On the other hand, the MLP accuses the PN of including some Labour ideas in the PN manifesto and adds that the PN had all the time in the world to implement measures it is still proposing now.
Apart from this political tit-for-tat which is, after all, part of the game, the two major political parties should try to concentrate more on what they are proposing, rather than looking back at the past. Each and every party in government Malta has done good things and bad things (the ratio of which is not being debated here). What the people want to hear is what the political parties are offering.
In the opening part of the campaign, the Malta Labour Party concentrated mostly on what it described as bad governance and corruption, saying that the PN’s failures should be the reason to push the people to vote Labour.
Over the past week, however, the MLP has changed its tactics. Although it continues to accuse the government with bad governance, it is giving more importance to what it is proposing. For example, its ideas on alternative energy and its belief that the manufacturing industry still has a place in the country’s economy were topics that leader Alfred Sant dealt with over the past days.
The Nationalist Party had a different strategy. It immediately embarked on a campaign that promoted the party as the better choice for the country’s future. It did this by speaking of the solid foundations it has laid, but rather than focus on what was achieved, it gave great space to what it is planning for the years to come. Its Vision 2015 was launched months ago, but it has now become the focal point of the PN’s campaign.
The people who will go to vote on 8 March (and even those who will not) will be investing in their future. They have a tough decision to make.
They will either go for a Nationalist Party that has been in office for the past 10 years, and which has led Malta to become a European Union member, following this up with the changeover to the euro that has opened up new avenues for foreign investment in Malta. Or else they will go for a Malta Labour Party that is promising a change.
The people will have to decide whether to continue on the road that Malta has embarked upon over the last years, which saw a turnaround in economic terms so much so that the party in government is aiming for a surplus budget by the year 2010. Or else go for a party which has not yet been clear enough as to what it is going to do and how to get there – the reception class proposal and the halving of the surcharge are just two cases in point.