In 1945, Clement Attlee won a landslide victory in the first post-war general election in Britain, bringing the Labour Party to power. A year later, during a heated debate in the House of Commons, the Labour Attorney General, Lord Shawcross, allegedly said  “We are the masters now,” words which were reported by the overwhelmingly Tory press of the time as indicative of the Labour government’s high-handed attitude to the introduction of sweeping socialist reforms in post-war Britain. It was implied that demagoguery, not democracy, was now the order of the day.

I was reminded of these words as I studied the emerging shape of the government’s way of doing business over the last five months. It is my job as an independent observer of the Maltese political scene with no political axe to grind – but who had concluded before the election that it was “time for a change to Labour” - to report on events as they develop as objectively as possible. I do not resile from what I said before 9 March, but I have a duty to raise concerns since there is yet time for a young and inexperienced government to change direction.

“We are the masters now”, with its arrogant implications, appears to be the overriding mantra of the new government. And it is an extremely worrying concern in a government that was overwhelmingly elected on the admirable platform of Malta Taghna Lkoll, promising to change the polarising mind-set of Maltese politics, breaking down its tribal nature with a promise that individuals in society should be treated not on the chosen colour of their politics, but on what contribution they can offer to Malta.

Roughly translated, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said, “For us, Malta does not belong to any single person. It does not belong to a clique. Malta does not belong to a particular politician or a particular party. That time has gone. This is the promise I make to you. That your country is going to be yours. You may not agree with us, but you can work with us.”

After five months, those words are beginning to ring extremely hollow. If I were asked to explain the glaring dichotomy between “Malta Taghna Lkoll” and “We are the masters now”, I would put it down to two factors: inexperience and a shallow grasp of the institution of democracy. True democracy is not achieved by general elections alone, even if Malta has the highest turnout of any country in Europe. It is achieved by the development of institutional checks on government power: a free press (the independent press has been exemplary in the recent immigration farrago), the independent judiciary, a neutral civil service (more about this later), protection for minorities (including African asylum seekers), respect for civil society (such as the excellent NGOs which put a stop to an illegal government act and were unjustifiably castigated for their action), freedom of religion and respect for the rule of law (including international humanitarian law).

Democracy cannot be allowed to lead to the tyranny of the majority. Just because a government has been elected with, by Maltese standards, a huge majority, should not mean that 43 per cent of the population that did not vote for it are to be marginalized. Elected leaders with a relatively large majority should not become autocratic rulers. Electoral might is not always right. Indeed, the constant debate is about the proper balance between might and right – between the claims of the state on one side and the rights of the individual on the other. Popularly elected leaders cannot govern as they please.

The platform on which Prime Minister Joseph Muscat was elected was precisely that the minority who did not vote for him are as much citizens of their country as those who did. A leader’s job is to consider carefully what to do and then to act in the national interest, not just those of his supporters. Winning an election does not entitle a leader to disregard all checks on his power. My persistent anxiety now is that the tyranny of the majority, exemplified by the phrase “We are the masters now” has led the government to abuse its position of power to reduce the rights of minorities, contrary to what was promised before the election.

This was brought to a head by the Prime Minister’s first real test of leadership since taking office. A larger than usual influx of asylum seekers led to a gross government over-reaction with unintended consequences for Malta’s diplomatic standing in Europe, a legal ruling against Malta’s proposed action by the European Court of Human Rights, threats of the use of Malta’s veto and school-yard language unbecoming of the leader of our country. Worse, it directly encouraged an out-pouring of racist bile and xenophobia – never far below the surface in this nominally Christian country – of which we should be truly ashamed.

I am writing more fully about ethics in immigration in my column next Wednesday. Suffice to say, however, that the Maltese government displayed a lack of judgment and an arrogance in using innocent black Africans to make a point with the European Union, which only reflects the detachment from reality that comes from thinking that a (relatively) large electoral victory gave it a standing in Europe way beyond the Lilliputian size of our country.

The government’s virtually clean sweep of all public appointments based overwhelmingly on political colour and its treatment of senior appointments in the civil service (and it is rumoured in the foreign service, too) all point to a government where clientalism and party cliques override other considerations, contrary to what had been promised. The tone of the President’s Speech and the triumphalist way in which the amnesty for prisoners was handled, the reports of the minister sitting in on the supposedly independent selection process for Malta’s Security Service serve to underline the behaviour of a government for whom power and hubris prevail. “We are the masters now”.

The Summer Recess is now upon the government. The Prime Minister and his ministers should take a deserved break. On the whole – bar some awful foul-ups, which were mostly caused by inexperience and ill judgment – the government has made a purposeful, if dysfunctional, start. The long-awaited judicial review is under way, the prison service is being reorganised, the introduction of same-sex unions is imminent, literacy and the education system are being re-cast. On the horizon lurk potential problems over the budget, health and the EU backlash from irregular immigration.

Overall, the lack of good governance skills still marks out the new government. It would be extremely beneficial if the Prime Minister were to organise a two-day seminar for ministers at Girgenti to take stock of how things have gone in the first five months and to allow the few ministers who have any real experience of governing – Evarist Bartolo, Helena Dalli, the Vellas, Joe Mizzi and Leo Brincat – and possibly experienced senior civil servants to offer their views on how to exercise good administration and to avoid some of the pitfalls of the last few weeks.