There is a marked difference between a government that is about to face an election, and one that has just been elected.

The months leading up to a general election are used by governments to dish out the goodies after a period of restraint, to promise that the goodies will continue after the election and to say that what went wrong in the present term in office will be corrected in the next.

The months just after an election are then used to tone down the promises that had been made, saying that after all there are five years still to go to implement them all, and to slow down the dishing out of the goodies, if not eliminate them completely, blaming the change on matters beyond control.

This is, generally speaking, what all parties in government do. And this is what seems to be happening today in Malta too.

Six months after the Nationalist Party was reconfirmed in government for the third consecutive time, what the people are hearing today is different from what they were being told in February and March. And yet the situation in the first quarter of this year is not that much different from what we are experiencing today.

Of course, some very tough decisions have been taken – matters that were hardly, if ever, mentioned in the pre-election days so as not to undermine the Nationalist Party’s chances, but decisions that needed to be taken in the best interest of the country.

The shipyards privatisation is probably the best example of them all, but other important moves were taken up, including planned reforms at the Malta Environment and Planning Authority, the rent regulations, local councils and public transport.

All are controversial issues – except perhaps that concerning local councils – and need to be tackled in the early years of the government tenure so that their impact on how people will vote next time round will be minimised through the passage of time.

But, apart from this, the government is passing subtle hints that it will take longer than anticipated to implement other measures that were announced in the budget, foremost among which is the continuation of the tax revision plan that started in the budget for 2007 and continued for the 2008 budget. Before the election, the government said that the revision will continue in 2009 too.

These subtle hints are ironically being passed at a time when the government is insisting that the economy is growing, and has entered into a debate on the matter with the opposition, which is saying that the economy is expanding only thanks to government investment.

We will know more when the government will be publishing the budget for 2009, some time in mid-October. Until then, there will only be speculation as to what the government will be doing to keep the country on track.

With the unions claiming a high cost of living and expecting compensation for it, and employers insisting that it would be better not to raise wages but to lower taxes, the government needs to find the middle-ground so as to keep both sides happy with the risk, however, of not completely satisfying either of them.

For its part, the opposition is adding its pressure that the government should fulfil its pre-electoral promises now, and not find excuses to postpone them until the general election is approaching.

The government might be playing its own game too. It might be saying things are hard so that things will not be as bad as expected when the decisions are finally made public, and the government will emerge with positive feedback.

Yet these are games that have been played frequently in the past, and the people are getting used to them.