A year ago today Malta had its traditional, probably obsolete, day of silence as the country pondered on which party to trust for the following five years. And, a year ago tomorrow, the people voted to give the Nationalist Party its third consecutive term of office by the slimmest of margins, just 1,500 more votes than the Labour Party.

One year has passed, and so many things have changed.

Elsewhere in this newspaper, Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi and Opposition Leader Joseph Muscat give their views on the first year of this term, with a view to the near future. As is to be expected, there is little, if anything, in common in what they wrote.

While Dr Gonzi speaks of a year in which the groundwork was laid for a better future for the country in a world that is passing through such a tumultuous time, Dr Muscat highlights the problems that the government has failed to tackle and insists that the government has not lived up to the expectations.

This approach is understandable, and it must be admitted that, mixed together, the two articles give a very realistic view of what is going on.

An electoral programme is based on five years, and so one year is still too short a time to make an overall assessment. Yet, on the other hand, it does provide an indication as to whether the government is fulfilling its promises while at the same time meeting the different challenges that could not be anticipated a year ago.

For one thing, the economic crisis that has gripped the world came after the election, and this no doubt has shifted the goalposts in no small way. The way the price of oil shot up all through summer also had its big effect on the local economy, although since then the price has dropped to just one third of what it was last July, mainly as a result of the economic crisis that developed in September.

These international developments left their mark on the way the country progressed in the last 365 days, and led to issues which were hotly debated in the political sphere. Some are still with us although so much time has passed, and the most important of the lot is the water and electricity revision, on which so much has been said and written and which, however, so much confusion still exists.

Reforms that the Nationalist Party promised and, as a government, started to implement after the election victory are still very much in the making. We are still to know what proposals will be made to review the way local councils operate, whereas little has been heard about the reform in the Malta Environment and Planning Authority, which Dr Gonzi took under his wing.

The government’s finances seem to be out of control too, while tourism figures show that this mainstay of the local economy will have to work hard to maintain what it gained in the last two years. The World Economic Forum’s Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Index, published on Wednesday, does paint a rather bleak picture in this regard.

The illegal immigration problem still dominates the headlines, while no progress seems to have been made to cut down on the hospital waiting lists. The shift from St Luke’s Hospital to Mater Dei Hospital has not helped much.

On the positive side, although hundreds of jobs were lost, others were created to replace them. Malta continues to attract investment from abroad, and the two other pillars of the government’s strategy – environment and education (the third is the economy) – have received great attention.

One year has passed since the election. Dr Gonzi and his team have not covered as much ground as was expected, but successive Nationalist governments have always taken a slow approach in the first half of a term in office, only to pick up a faster rhythm as the election draws nearer.

Will they be doing it again this time too? We’ll see.