The letter was dated 25 February 2008, a cynically convenient 10 days away from a general election.

The letter was written by Dr Lawrence Gonzi, Prime Minister of Malta. It was sent from Auberge de Castille, the Prime Minister’s office.

The letter was sent to the employees of the National Carrier – Air Malta.

In the letter, Dr Gonzi invited Air Malta personnel to vote for his Nationalist Party promising that he would deliver “certainty” combined with “a strong economy” that translates into job security.

One may perhaps discount the behaviour of Dr Gonzi as a cheap propaganda ploy on the eve of an election. Closer scrutiny of the letter, however, unearths some disturbing elements. I will here look at three specific elements.

Official Stamp – the letter was not sent from the propaganda department of the Nationalist Party. It carried the full weight of a Prime Minister whose main objective is to act in the national interest.

Subsequent failure to live up to the promises is therefore not the failure of some anonymous political apparatchik but the failure of our Prime Minister himself. This behaviour of Mr Prime Minister, therefore, cannot but enforce a perception that he is unable to distinguish between national and strictly narrow party political interests.

Facts – being written by the Prime Minister himself, the recipient would assume that the grand promises made by Dr Gonzi were based on an analysis of the facts as known to him at the time. In the letter, the Prime Minister went on about how economic activity was the cornerstone to Air Malta’s sustainability. This must have come as a breath of fresh air to Air Malta personnel, who had had to carry the brunt of a painful restructuring exercise. As things now stand, the behaviour of the Prime Minister enforces the perception that he is willing to ‘use’ facts known to him in the interests of his partisan political interests, even at the expense of bread-winners.

Emotions – Dr Gonzi had no compunction in playing the emotional card to the hilt. The letter starts off by acknowledging the importance of the Air Malta job not least because it provided the livelihood of the recipient’s family. Can there be a more callous way of using the “family” for political gain?

Not only did Dr Gonzi fail to take responsibility for the catalogue of failures of previous Nationalist governments that he now seeks to shift onto Air Malta personnel, but he did not seem to bat an eyelid in milking painful circumstances in the short-term interest of his partisan political interests.

Machiavellian maxims such as ‘A promise given was a necessity of the past: the word broken is a necessity of the present’ may have earned Dr Gonzi some political points in the short term but does very little for the wellbeing of our nation.

Malta is indeed calling for its political class to come clean with realities as a prerequisite to recruit the vast capabilities of this nation and make them work for the benefit of all. Malta cannot afford to settle for anything less. Our country needs a new direction that can ensure a successful future for Air Malta and our country as a whole.

Dr Zrinzo Azzopardi is the president of the Labour Party