I am not one of those people who spends hours stuck to a TV set to follow political debates as if I need them as much as I need oxygen because if there is something I cannot stand is the irrepressible mudslinging that has marred the current electoral campaign. Rather than discussing issues of national interest, most politicians cannot go further than to demonise their opponents and squabble over petty matters.

Perhaps the one exception to the above rule has been Angelo Xuereb who rightly portrays himself as a man of few words but of deeds. Xuereb may not have the gift of being a great orator, but his six-year stint as Naxxar mayor can arguably be referred to as one of the best-ever mayorships in the Maltese Islands, a fact that even his main detractors find difficulty in denying.

Xuereb is indeed a man of great vision and full of resources as his entrepreneurship can demonstrate. He is a man whose track record does not conflict with the idea of imagining him as a minister for works and infrastructure. With Xuereb we would not build a hospital that overran its costs by three times its original estimates and which took over 15 years to complete, and we would neither have a road network that envies the road network of Rwanda or Burundi.

Raphael Blanco

St Julian’s