Alternattiva Demokratika’s claim of championing liberalism and equal rights does not tally with the measly electoral line-up of eight candidates, none of whom representing the inclusive society they purport to promote.

Now contesting general elections for the fifth time, AD has managed to beat its own poor pre-electoral record by fielding one of the smallest numbers of candidates ever, not a single woman, and not even a single representative of some ethnic or religious minority they so much strive to claim to defend. To make things worse, only a couple of weeks ago Rene Rossignaud, on whom they had so much banked for an electoral success on the ninth district, resigned after openly disagreeing with the party’s campaign which was described as being unfair. These serious failures underscore the underlying weaknesses of this grouping as a conventional political party and reinforces the argument that they should have remained a pressure group for the environment.

In contrast, though formed barely six months ago and unjustly vilified by certain sections of the media, Josie Muscat’s Azzjoni Nazzjonali has been able to field a much more complete and representative team of people that includes a number of persons that have shown extreme capability and vision in building successful business empires while still excelling in leading philanthropic initiatives. Being the only party to truly promote conservative, and nationalist values as well as economic liberalism, AN is clearly the only real alternative to the liberal, socialist and anti-nationalist policies that we have had to endure under a succession of MLPN governments whose political collocations are in their own words in the centre-left of the political spectrum. And AD’s collocation is even more to the left!

In Malta as in the rest of Europe, we have a pluralistic society with variegated political ideologies. However unlike other European countries these ideologies do not find expression in the national parliament because unlike all other European states, we only have two parties in parliament. This is a gross deficiency because democracy can best be served with a reasonable number of political parties that reflect the political beliefs of the whole society in its parliament.

I shall vote for Azzjoni Nazzjonali and hope that two or three of their candidates will make it to parliament which (unlike what the big parties want us to believe) is absolutely possible to achieve. On the other hand, even though I despise left-wing ideology, I still hope that even the Greens make it because I respect their commitment to represent a segment of our society that like AN today does not have a political representation.

The PN and MLP are per se not the evil entities that the Greens so much like to portray. Our country’s worse enemy is the two-party political system which has for so long sowed division and hate and has served to effectively limit our economic and social progress. On 8 March we can change all this and this will make us even more European.

Martin Degiorgio

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