There were, and still are, so many instances where this government failed the nation in its ideas and in the way it went about implementing them that there is little time – if any at all – for it to reorganise itself and present itself as a palatable political entity worth trusting again.

Above the internal discontent and defiance permeating the most important structures of the party, the mishandling of the divorce debate, the gaffe of the ministerial salary raise and the delusions brought about by the new transport system, it is the way the Nationalist Party went about promising the electorate at the last general elections, and then how it overtly failed to deliver the goods, that has been most hurtful to itself and to families.

The bottom line is that these failures, and the sheer insensitivity shown by the government in the face of its own gaffes, have greatly affected family life and the quality of living.

Indeed while ministers were wallowing in their own very generous salary raises, government controlled prices of very essential goods and services carried on spiralling and gnawing into families’ purchasing power, pushing up their cost of living very significantly. To add insult to injury, the Prime Minister, realising that he couldn’t fudge the issue any longer, decided that he and his cabinet would stop taking the raise this year because, according to him, 2012 will be a tough year... but he would not refund what he and his ministers had already received in raises between 2008 and 2011.

He seems to have forgotten that despite many challenges this year, admittedly, they are nowhere near the serious threats of 2009 to the stability of employment and growth - the year of the real recession - which was the year when he and his cabinet were already receiving a comfortable 500 euro weekly raise in their salaries and which they will not refund.

The salary-raise saga will continue to haunt the Prime Minister and his cabinet. It simply won’t go despite Dr Gonzi’s frantic efforts to declare the matter closed. The more he tries to put the lid on the boiling cauldron of popular discontent, the more he comes out as outright arrogant, pompous and snubbishly dismissive of public opinion. He has become a symptom of an aged administration showing not only fissures of discord but rather canyons of apartheid within its own ranks. Ask Franco Debono and he will speak to you of an administration run like an oligarchy.

In the meantime, John Citizen has to face extraordinary increases in the prices of petrol, diesel, gas and other essentials, with the cost of living spiralling out of control because of government induced costs and because of government’s reluctance to help families, and blaming everything on international prices, thus seriously undermining the government’s social commitment towards the country. It is a symptom of a government fleeing from the centre towards the right of the political spectrum.

No wonder Dr Gonzi and his ministers are simply unable to identify themselves with problems faced by ordinary families, preferring to find solace in the advice of blue-eyed fat cats who have amassed fortunes thanks to their good relations with the nationalist party, and who are obviously immune to the pinches of austerity measures.

The Prime Minister might still believe that he can win the next general election by the same whisker of the last one. He might also have a trump card down his sleeve to use closer to the elections, like throwing money at people at the expense of the public exchequer.

But now the electorate has understood that any manna coming from heaven before the elections will have to be paid back sooner rather than later in the form of taxes and interest after the elections.

The mascara has come off.

Dr Gulia is the Opposition’s Main Spokesman for Tourism and Air Malta