The Malta Labour Party’s main thrust of its election campaign is that the country needs a change. It says this because the Nationalist Party has been in government for 19 of the last 21 years and, based on this factor only, insists that the MLP is the party with the fresher ideas.

The problem about this is that the MLP is not as fresh as it portrays itself to be. Of course, having been in opposition is altogether a different story than having been in government. But the thing is that most of the people who, if Labour is elected to government, will sit on the Cabinet have themselves been there already, with little success, if any.

Many have been ministers in the Alfred Sant government that lasted only 22 months between 1996 and 1998, and a few were also in Parliament as part of a government that had not obtained the majority of votes in the 1981 election, but still opted to lead the country in what was the darkest period of Malta’s recent history.

More than this, Alfred Sant has been leading the MLP for 16 years, as against the four years of Lawrence Gonzi as head of the Nationalist Party. Less than two of these years were spent as Prime Minister, leading a frail government that collapsed due to the internal difficulties the MLP was going through at the time.

And, frankly speaking, what Labour is proposing does not appear to be fresh at all. Talk of re-opening negotiations with the European Union four years into membership, the idea to have a reception class for children in between kindergarten and primary school and hints that social services could be revised downwards are not exactly suggestions that can be welcomed.

These proposals, if implemented, will not be a step forward. In particular, the issue regarding European Union membership should have been closed with the 2003 referendum and subsequent election. That Labour wants to re-open the matter now is tantamount to saying that the MLP has not accepted the decision taken by the people.

As such, Labour is in the same predicament of the Nationalist Party in terms of needing change. The party cannot expect the people to believe it is planning a new beginning for the country, when the people advocating such a new beginning have already been given the chance and failed, have been in Parliament for decades and are coming up with ideas that will throw the country backwards.

For Labour, change seems to be the only issue. For Labour, the people should decide to vote MLP simply because the time has come to remove the Nationalist Party from government. For Labour, the MLP should win the election because it is its turn to be in government.

And yet, Labour is doing little to be convincing enough that it has really changed and that it is a better alternative to the present government. The arguments that are being put forward by Labour show that the criticism that can be levelled to this government is limited to the weak performances of certain ministers, not the collective effort that has been put in by the whole administration. The Prime Minister and the Nationalist Party are the first to admit to this.

In the run-up to the election, Labour should delve deeper into the reasons as to why the people should give it the chance to run the country again. It should refrain from insisting on raising issues that have been decided and are part of history; and stop coming up with ideas, such as the one regarding education, that would simply throw the people’s money away and negatively affect people’s lives.