It is the role of every political party to do its best in order to be successful come election time. In the case of the Nationalist party it will be striving to retain its seat of power and, of course, being in Government the PN has the head start of incumbency. It seems fairly clear that the Nationalist Party will once more be targeting sections of the voters in order to obtain their votes. Promises will once more be made, however, with the PN we have the yardstick of past promises. It is thus fair to examine some promises and see what has been delivered, or not.

We all recall the vague and empty promises delivered with regard to the Drydocks. The PN said one thing and then did another. The hunting and bird trapping community know full well how they were manipulated by the PN. The list goes on and on: Air Malta, Sea Malta, pensions, income tax. One section the PN is targeting lately is the sports section, and this in subtle and not so subtle ways. Over a year ago we had the glamorous presentation of the white rocks project. This has left quite a lot of the proverbial egg on the face of our Prime Minister since the much vaunted project has not even started to see the light of day. Hence the back-up plan at Marsa so obviously hurriedly prepared that one Ministry does not know what the other Ministry is doing.

Then we have the re-launch of the 20:20 scheme and the Armed Forces of Malta schemes. Both excellent concepts but why now and with so much pomp when parts of these schemes were already in existence before? These were accompanied by the announcement of the expansion of Ta’ Qali Park, a park that that was meant to be run by the Olympic Movement in Malta and was in fact originally proposed by this NGO, and yet were unceremoniously dumped off the project when all the spadework had been done.

These and others are the obvious manoeuvre. The more subtle ones are harder to discern. I am not referring to the MP’s funding to sporting clubs on a personal level, this is fine. I am more concerned about scenarios such as the Good Causes Funding that we are always told is run independently and yet when the funds are allocated the sporting entities that benefit have the knack of being in certain ministers’ or Governmental MP’s electoral district. I am worried that the PN are planning to use sport as a means of garnishing votes. This has always been an active component of electoral campaigns from all parties. However, till now it was an individual candidate’s prerogative. This is the first time that such a concerted attempt to manipulate sport has been undertaken by a political party in our country.

Sport ought to be an essential component of our daily life since it has the obvious benefits of health and the not so obvious benefit of instilling discipline. Highjacking sport for political benefit is wrong. Highjacking sport to benefit one political party is wrong. Highjacking government funds to benefit the constituents of one electoral district is wrong and also demeaning.

Sport does not stand to benefit from this.

■ Simon Micallef Stafrace