The Nationalist Party does the right thing when it commemorates events that have shaped our history. The serious events that occurred under a Labour government that held on to power in spite of obtaining a minority of votes in the 1981 election, and which culminated in the Zejtun mass meeting disorder, the killing of a Nationalist Party activist in Gudja and the frame-up of an innocent person in those two weeks of shame in late 1986, should never be erased from our memory.
Where the Nationalist Party is wrong is in its transparent intention to stir up those events to gain political mileage, and use them as the main tool to win the next election. The PN will never admit to doing so, but the exaggerated way it is going about it, reminding us of all that took place so many years ago makes it blatantly clear – for all those who care to see – that the party’s target is to rekindle the pre-1987 election sentiment, when the country was on the verge of a civil war.
They were tough times that should not be forgotten – history repeats itself, it is said – but not at the expense of putting aside what is happening today.
Let us put things into perspective.
What took place in the early 1980s was horrendous and, as a new Labour leader who talks progress and modernization, Joseph Muscat should have never welcomed with open arms people who were intrinsically linked with that sad era, and appointed one of them (Karmenu Vella) to draw up the party’s upcoming electoral programme.
By doing so, he gave his political opponents every right to look back and say that Labour has not changed in spite of the new leadership, and that people who held important roles in the Labour government and party of the time are still occupying (other) delicate positions. The connection with the past is there for all to see.
That Labour’s two deputy leaders also bring back bad memories is not helpful either, and I still wonder why Labour delegates chose a young man as their new leader soon after the 2008 election, as if trying to start a new chapter, but then messed it all up by electing Anglu Farrugia and Toni Abela as his two right-hand men. In a way, they contradicted themselves by first appointing a new face, which gave an indication of a willingness to look ahead, and then choosing two deputies who gave delicious fodder to the PN mill because of their history.
But what the Nationalist Party should remember is that it is trying to win the 2013 election, and not the one in 1987. Reminding us of the past is good only up to a certain extent; the party should aim to win on what it is doing today, and not on what Labour did at the time it was in government.
People under 35 years of age do not remember the 1980s, just as much as I do not remember the dispute between the Church and the Labour Party in the 1960s. So people under 35 will not grasp what the situation was like in the 1980s because they did not live through it, just as much as I cannot grasp what really happened in the 1960s’ religious-political upheaval because I was born midway through that decade.
There’s another thing too – the first-time voters in the next election do not even remember Alfred Sant as Prime Minister, so anything the PN brings up about that short-lived Labour government will have little effect on them too.
If the PN lays too much emphasis on pre-1987 events (and Alfred Sant), rather than concentrate on what is happening now and why it should be given the chance to lead the country for a fourth consecutive term, then it runs the risk of being accused that it has little to offer, that it wants to win by default and that the past is more important than the future. And the detractors pointing this out will be justified in their line of reasoning.
Taking what has happened in the current term on its own, the Nationalist Party, in spite of its many mistakes – power station, honoraria, divorce, and internal strife – has grounds to claim that it deserves to retain the government seat. For one thing, the way it handled the economic crisis, leaving Malta practically unscathed in the midst of the turmoil that hit Europe just after the 2008 election and again this year, ought to be enough proof that the PN can be trusted in difficult times.
So the PN would be doing itself a favour if it works to win the next election on its own merits, based on the present, and not rely on the disasters that took place under Labour between 1981 and 1987 (as well as Alfred Sant’s 22-month stint as Prime Minister).
The PN will certainly gain more credibility if it projects itself as the party that is geared to face the future, rather than basing its strength on Labour’s poor past. If anything, if the PN wants to belittle Labour, it should focus on the PL’s inability to come up with serious proposals that could serve as an alternative to what the PN is doing.
The 51 proposals that were listed by Joseph Muscat in his reply to the budget were nothing much, and the PN could have a field day in this regard without having to constantly remind us of what happened so many years ago.
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