The fact that the country is in election mode is accepted by one and all. For the first time after many years, today we have a coalition government which is, of course, not something that the Maltese voted for

But that is not important for GonziPN and his clique. What is important is that they continue to keep power close to their chests.

These months in power are definitely not in the interest of the country, but in the interest of the few that form part of GonziPN. If decisions were taken in the country’s interest, an election would already have been called and held.

Some statements made by the leader of the GonziPN clique are astonishing. One of them came soon after the resignation of one of his ex members of parliament. Soon after GonziPN knew that he has the backing of only 34 MPs, which is exactly the same as the Opposition, the Prime Minister said that he can carry on with the so called programme until the last day of this legislature. Some of his programme consists of legislation which was not mentioned before by GonziPN but is now a priority. Moreover, these same laws were constantly mentioned by the Opposition.

But in order to cling to power, GonziPN will do whatever it takes. What is also amazing in this remark is that after almost four-and-a-half years, the Prime Minister is acknowledging that now is the time to start taking action on a number of issues. He mentioned a list of bread and butter issues, very important for the country. So we now also have a confirmation from the leader of the government that in the last years, he was more focused on trying to keep his team together and this without success, and now that his team is falling apart, he is trying to convince us that it is going to be easier to work for issues such as jobs, education, health and so on and so forth.

Another astonishing statement was that GonziPN was elected to govern for five years and that consequently, he felt he has a right to continue till the very end. Without really saying it, he implied that others are duty bound to support him in doing so. Apart from the fact that the political party in an election wins the right to govern the country until that same political party has the majority in parliament to do so, when something similar happened to another political party between 1996 and 1998, the PN at that time did whatever it took to bring down that same party.

But it seems that what is good for the goose is not good for the gander. As usual, GonziPN has two weights and two measures. In fact, the then secretary general of the PN, soon after the fall of the Labour government in 1998 said, “we managed to bring the government down”. Judging by today’s words of the Prime Minister, this was not the correct thing to do, since the Labour Party had the same right to govern for five years.

But today, the Labour Party under the leadership of Joseph Muscat is acting very responsibly and differently to what a PN opposition did at that time. One clear example of this is the law that was presented by the Labour government on tourism. This same legislation was seconded by the then shadow minister of the PN. However, as soon as they knew that one MP on the government side was not going to support the government of the day, they withdrew their support for this legislation and voted against.

The funny thing – if I can say so – was that soon after ascending back into power in 1998, the same piece of legislation was presented to Parliament and was approved unanimously. So much for consistency and the real interest of the country in the case of the Nationalist Party! And that is also what is happening today. Yet again, GonziPN is not governing in the country’s interests. Rather, it’s doing so in accordance with its own party interests.

In Parliament, the Opposition led by Joseph Muscat is acting responsibly. Of course, there were instances where we could have voted differently, but we opted to vote in favour because it was in Malta’s interest and also in the interest of the European Union, especially the eurozone. That is how a responsible Opposition behaves. Of course, we are not a fan club of the GonziPN clique. We want and aspire for change to happen as soon as possible because we believe that the country will benefit from a change in government.

Calls for an election are widespread. These are so not only because we have been campaigning for months now but since the country is not benefitting at all from this election mode. However the ball is in the Prime Minister’s court.

Carmelo Abela is Labour Main Spokesperson for Social Policy

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