There was a time when the Labour Party’s reluctance to say what it planned to do if and when it was elected to government was understandable, at least in part. The election was far away, the party was still finding its feet under a new leader, and it wanted to see how matters developed before it came forward with its proposals.

But now we are on the eve of an election, and this ruse is not working any more. It is no longer reasonable that the PL is keeping its cards close to its chest. The election might be weeks away – at most, one year – and Labour cannot continue to play this game. The public has a right to know what it is thinking of doing.

Joseph Muscat says that the Labour Party is not owed anything. But the PL owes us at least this – that we know what it stands for.

Were it up to Joseph Muscat, he would already be Prime Minister. The way the Opposition behaved when one government MP went publicly against the Prime Minister and caused a political crisis exposed a party that was ready to pounce on every opportunity to see the government collapse. Its motion of no-confidence in the Prime Minister, which did not pass thanks to the Speaker’s casting vote, was specifically intended to bring about a general election a year earlier than expected.

So on the one hand, the PL is evidently ready to win an election, or at least try to, but on the other, what happens from then onwards is anyone’s guess because it is totally silent on what it intends to do. And each time Dr Muscat and top party officials are asked what they have in mind, they keep saying that it is not yet the time.

Who knows, maybe the Labour Party is thinking that it will win the next election by default – that is, without proposing anything, but knowing that it is the favourite to win, in spite of the “underdog” tag that Dr Muscat wants to give his party.

The PL is leading in the polls by a substantial margin, and most of it is because the Nationalist Party has been in government for a total of nearly 25 years. So perhaps Labour believes that, whatever it suggests – and even if it does not propose anything – it will still win the next election.

However, a political party in opposition must present its views to the electorate. It must explain what policies it will pursue. It must say which sectors of the current administration it thinks need to be maintained in toto or simply fine-tuned, and which it thinks need an overhaul. It must also come up with new ideas to try to make things better.

But so far, Labour’s policies are like chocolate eggs. They are nicely wrapped to increase expectations, the chocolate looks delicious, but what will the gift inside be? Will we like what we find, or will we be disappointed? Or, worse, will we find anything there at all?

The Labour Party is possibly afraid to say what it is planning because each time it has tried something new, it has been heavily criticised. We all remember the idea of a transition class between primary and secondary schooling, proposed on the eve of the last election, which was quickly dubbed as the repeater class by the Nationalists, and which drew scorn from all and sundry. I am sure that this suggestion was one of the reasons why Labour failed to win in 2008.

More recently, we had the living wage proposal by Joseph Muscat and, again, his idea was shot down as not being suitable. Labour initially insisted on the concept, but when it realised that public opinion opposed the idea, it withdrew it and we have not heard about it since.

It is clear that when Joseph Muscat speaks of “when the time is right” he is alluding to the start of the election campaign, ie when the Prime Minister sets the date of the election. Dr Muscat and his colleagues say that Labour’s plans are already black on white and all they are waiting for to announce what they have in mind is the starting pistol.

But I will not be surprised if, when the time eventually comes, these so-called proposals turn out to be a string of vague statements similar to the ones made by Joseph Muscat in his reply to the budget speech, when he listed what he called 51 proposals that were either already being implemented or else were simply a nice-sounding idea without any real value.

Using the strategy of complete silence, the Labour Party is taking a big risk. Labour officials must remember that the people they need to convince are not their diehard supporters, who will vote Labour anyway. They need to persuade the floating voters, who are growing in number between one election and the next, and who are the ones who determine the overall winners.

If the Labour Party continues to be perceived as a party that is power-hungry but at the same time does not provide a better alternative than the present incumbent, then its stay in opposition could be prolonged even further.

To be elected, Labour must be seen to be offering a better option than the Nationalist Party. If, in spite of its blunders, arrogance and weariness, the PN is seen as offering a better deal to the electorate, then the chances are that it will win again.

[email protected]