There comes a time when one is asked to choose. How to be governed, which policies to be guided by and to shape the kind of future we all yearn for as well as how to do ensure that these objectives are reached in the most effective and practical manner.
This we shall all be doing next Saturday. Although many claim that it was a relatively calm campaign – which I guess it was – it was not without its nasty turns. Especially when we started realising that due to often finding themselves against the wall, those who realised that they were fighting an uphill struggle simply allowed the campaign itself to just get dirty.
Internal and external suggestions that the campaign should have not resorted as originally intended to demonisation platforms seems to have gone unheeded – by design and not by default. The template long drawn up before Alfred Sant underwent a major operation over the Christmas period was relied upon again for want of fresher and more innovative ideas.
Unwittingly some gonzipn leaning columnists gave the game away that corruption will continue to haunt this government until it is actually voted out of office next Saturday. This was confirmed by an article in The Times which drew a rather bizarre parallel. Its line of arguing went this way. Fatah – as it rightly or wrongly claimed – might be very corrupt, but look what the Palestinians got when they chose to opt for change… Hamas.
The subliminal message was quick to understand even by the most naïve of political scene watchers. Better to continue being governed by an allegedly corrupt administration than risk change for change’s sake. I can take that from the perspective of those with vested commercial interests based on patronage and favouritism who have everything to lose with a change in government, even if that could lead to a zero tolerance administration that has far more drive and purpose than this by now jaded lot. But I wonder how the guys at Transparency International must have felt when coming across such a line of thought, especially after having dumped us and classified us with a number of Third World countries where graft and corruption are the order of the day.
No wonder some people are trying to play down the importance of transparency, efficiency and good governance. A last minute pledge by Lawrence Gonzi that he will follow such norms falls even shorter than a “too little, too late” tag.
The country is simply crying out for an administration where we can all shape the future together. Without good governance and a corruption free approach, no amount of economic management skills on their own will be enough to lead us to a truly better tomorrow and the kind of fairer and more socially just and efficient society we all yearn for and deserve as an independent republic now firmly entrenched in the European Union. No matter how hard others might try to make or turn the EU into a perennial election issue.
Many Nationalists I know – media spinners included – have tried to play on the Sant health factor which is in actual fact no longer an issue by underlying and repeatedly stressing the “fact” that Gonzi has proved to be a man of physical stamina and unlimited energy.
The past few weeks have not only shown that Alfred Sant has managed to have put behind him his Christmas period health troubles, but as an editorialist (non-Labour) recently commented in his recent public appearances he has exuded calm, self-possession and lucidity.
The same cannot be said for the Prime Minister regardless of certain communication skills which he may possess. When he flies over by helicopter to deliver an urgently called press conference on claims of plans to introduce health sector payments, he showed that not only does he frequently swing into a reactive mood but also that he realises that the situation is grim and that the stakes are far too high for him after having so far failed to ever, ever win a single electoral contest.
There comes a day when one’s last cards to play are to try and resort to a damage limitation exercise or else to salvage a sliver of your pride.
This could be confirmed by the weak statement by the OPM on the leaked health services payment proposal memo that the claim that the Cabinet had actually agreed in principle on the introduction of fees was a misrepresentation of the Cabinet brief given to the experts to prepare the policy report! This fumbling and mumbling OPM spokesperson seems to have forgotten that even the IMF were aware of this game plan. Otherwise they would have not stated in the IMF document I quoted from on TVM that “against this background, the (Maltese) authorities did not see a need for introducing co-payment (in the health sector) …at this stage”. It merely confirms that things have been merely put on ice for political or to be even more precise electoral reasons!
Having pushed most of his key ministers aside almost to the post of confining them to exclusion when in their majority they are and will remain the major vote grabbers for his party, Lawrence Gonzi has merely hung a political noose around his neck which can only lead to a state of internal misery and mutual finger-pointing from Monday onwards. I can understand why he did so but this astonishing show of hubris left him proceeding almost politically naked alone in the woods with a strongly supportive wife for whom at the end of the day people do not vote. Last Wednesday’s promise of a cabinet of new ministers if gonzipn wins the election was the kiss of death for many a party stalwart.
He even drove the dagger deeper into the wound when he said that though the time was ripe to insert new and young elements in his next government… it all depended on who of the candidates was elected!
There is nothing wrong in such a mix in any political party, but the fact that gonzipn is pledging to do so, so late in the day is confirmation that his formula so far of defending his mainly EFA promoted ministers has not worked. As a blogger said, the man who has always had the image of an indecisive politician is now asking the electorate to do a job he did not have the political clout to carry out on his own by removing them for him.
Saturday will be a moment of truth. A decisive day when every vote will count. Where people will realise what one side is really offering and the extent of unkept promises that form part of the other’s side political baggage.
The country simply needs a new lease of life. A breath of fresh air. People with a clean political bill of health.
In disagreeing with certain aspects of current US policies Al Gore described this as an assault on reason. In Malta’s case the loaded dice and media managed bias against Labour was nothing but an assault on common sense. But within less than a week truth will prevail. And we can all get down to the business of shaping the future together.
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Leo Brincat is opposition spokesman for foreign affairs and IT