If a week is a long time in politics, as the adage goes, then the four weeks that the government has given our already part-time Members of Parliament as an Easter recess is an awfully long time indeed.

And that timeframe is stretched even longer when considering the fact that Parliament has not taken a vote of significance since the government confidence vote back in January. The first quarter of the year is now behind us today and the House cannot be said to have done much but waste time since then.

The Opposition is quite correct when it says that the government is, through its delaying tactics, merely avoiding further potentially embarrassing episodes in Parliament given the still very much unresolved issues with its backbencher Franco Debono, who appears to be standing firm in his threat to no longer vote with the government in Parliament.

The government is very clearly delaying matters until it is finally able to get its own house in order before fully facing the House itself, lest it is forced by events beyond its control to call an earlier-than-planned election.

But, having said that, the Opposition’s stance on the issue, when it cries foul and scandal over the four-week recess and whether one agrees with it or not, stands on shaky ground indeed. After all, as reported in today’s issue, the Opposition itself had called a similar four-week ‘holiday’ for MPs back in 1997 when it had found itself temporarily without a finance minister. Temporary dementia, as has been shown time and time again, can be very convenient in politics.

Yes, it is scandalous that the government is currently avoiding a vote in Parliament like the plague itself but it is also scandalous of the Opposition to cry foul, and to play stupid by ignoring the fact that it had done pretty much the same thing not so long ago.

The situation is somewhat similar to that which we had exposed when the whole furore about Cabinet members’ honoraria had erupted. Both sides of the House had been selective and disingenuous with the truth on the thorny issue, and the issue had embarrassed MPs on both sides of the House.

The government could rightly have been accused of having kept the matter under wraps. But an article this newspaper had carried on the subject back then showed that at least two veteran Labour MPs knew full well of the additional remuneration before it had become the issue that it did.

Frankly, the whole matter was rotten and it showed that, instead of levelling with the people, both parties preferred playing games with the electorate that they court – not just at election time but, also, more subtly, throughout the whole legislature.

The government eventually backed down and cancelled the honoraria but in actual fact, as we have argued before, the honoraria themselves were honourable but the way in which they were granted was anything but.

It is these small untruths, omissions and white lies that time and time again alienate the populace from politics and their parties. And as such, it would be no big surprise if the turnout in the next general election were to fall drastically from the percentage in 2008 and at this rate the country in a few elections’ time may fall from its position of having one of the highest voter turnouts in the world. Just take a look at last month’s local council election campaign and the resulting dismal, record low turnout.

People are no fools and they are perhaps no longer so willing to swallow the bait, fed to them by their respective political parties, hook, line and sinker as though it was the gospel truth.

Today’s electorate is growing ever more demanding and it is our job in the independent media to expose such situations. In fact, the article itself had started off as an indictment against the length of this Easter’s recess, but it turned out differently. That is our duty, to expose the truth, whatever that may be, without fear or favour from either party whose forte is the manipulation of that same truth.

It is the electorate’s duty to sift through all the polarised political messages out there and to get to the real heart of the issues beyond the gloss and mudslinging, to decipher what the real state of affairs is, and to not believe simply believe all they are fed by their respective spin doctors – a tall order but one that must be filled if the country is to make any progress on the political and democratic fronts.