The first 100 days in office that this new government marks next week have neither been the earth-shattering political revolution that many of those who had voted for the Labour Party in the last general election had, perhaps naively, expected, nor has it been the beginning of the Armageddon that those on the other side of this country’s political spectrum had foretold. 

As this newspaper had said in the lead-up to last March’s general election, despite all the political propaganda foisted upon voters over those excruciatingly long nine weeks of electioneering at the beginning of the year, and despite one’s personal political inclinations, anyone with even a modicum of common sense knew that none of the parties contesting the election was out to ruin the country over the next five years.

The Labour Party may have been advocating the necessity of a change in the country’s direction and the Nationalist Party may have argued that the direction in which the country was headed was the right one, and that you do not change horse in midstream. But certainly neither party, despite what was said, was sending or was to send the country down the road to ruin.

And now close to 100 days down the road from what was nothing short of a landmark sweeping electoral victory and a huge mandate to govern, most of the people out there and the business community appear to have accepted that matters have largely remained essentially unchanged. Nothing has changed all that much for the majority of the population, and life as we know it has continued exactly along the same lines as it had before the election campaign started.

Yes, there have been a number of decisions taken so far that leave an awful lot to be desired, such as the number of transfers in the civil service and resignations from government positions and even the ill-advised amnesty for prisoners. But, on the other hand, while there have been others that have reshaped the country and how it views itself, mainly in the areas of civil rights, where the new government is living up to its election promises in an admirable fashion.

That election has also forced the Nationalist Party now in opposition to do some serious soul-searching and to reorganise itself root and branch. That in itself is positive in that the stronger the Opposition, the better the government.

What the next 100 days and the remainder of the legislature hold in store obviously remains to be seen but one thing is for certain, this country and its people must continue to face up to and make the most of the considerable challenges of this day and age and it will continue to do so with, petty bickering aside, the help of the government and the Opposition alike.

A sham

Earlier this month, the Institute of Maltese Journalists’ Press Ethics Commission held a hearing on an article published by this newspaper that reported investigations into allegations concerning Mater Dei’s Rainbow Ward, the children’s oncology unit.

The hearing, which resulted in the ‘censuring’, for what it is worth, of the journalist who investigated the allegations because she did not ask the individuals under investigation for their views on the matter, cannot be described as anything better than a sham.

First and foremost, anyone who is an actual practicing journalist knows that it is far from standard practice to ask people who are under official investigation for their comments on the allegations they are facing. Secondly, those investigations concern official positions in state employment and have nothing to do with anything related to their private lives.

Moreover, it should be noted that a request for a right of reply from the main protagonist of the article was duly granted and this newspaper had also offered that same person a full interview with this newspaper in order to fully explain his position, but while the request was at first acceded to, it was later retracted.

Secondly, the hearing was a sham because neither the journalist nor the editor of the newspaper in which the article was published are or ever were members of the Institute. And, despite the Institute’s argumentation that its own code of ethics empowers it to entertain complaints related to any journalist, member or not, we staunchly beg to differ. The Institute and its independent Press Ethics Commission has acted ultra vires in that it has acted completely outside its remit in this case.

We are, however, pleased that the Press Ethics Commission has not questioned the veracity or the public interest value of the article in question, which we will not delve into here at this point, but we must say we continue to stand foursquare behind the article.

Finally, when the commission chooses to censure one of this newspaper’s journalists, it censures the newspaper as a whole, and not only that journalist but also the editor who published the article and who is legally responsible for its content. It is, in fact, the editor of this newspaper that should have been the subject of this sham, and not the journalist.

A bridge too far?

Sparks have already begun to fly, as could have been expected, over the government’s intention to move forward with a feasibility study on building a bridge to link Malta to Gozo.  And the debate is expected to get hotter with each passing month of the study’s term.

While we will reserve our opinion on the matter until the results of the feasibility study are completed, one must in the meantime ask oneself, especially if you are a Gozitan who will be voting in the proposed Gozo-only referendum on the issue, not only whether such a bridge would become a permanent eyesore on a stunning land and seascape, but whether that unique charm that Gozo holds by being separated from the more bustling Malta should be sacrificed in favour of better connectivity for its residents.

Whatever the case, if the project is deemed feasible at the end of the day, the debate that will ensue will be a raging one indeed.