Six months after the massive election win; there are signal areas where the Muscat administration has indeed been implementing its electoral commitments.

The changes that will lead, hopefully, to reduced electricity bills and the generation of electricity from gas, despite my past and possibly present scepticism, are on track.

Otherwise, the new administration is still stuttering.

The faults and structural deficiencies in the health system are still there, despite no less than three ‘ministers’ being sent to supervise change – Godfrey Farrugia, Marlene Farrugia and John Dalli.

There has been a definite change at PBS, not altogether unwelcome, but things have shifted all the way to the other side now.

Otherwise we have had ministers running after each other and tripping each other up in their efforts to appear to be doing something. Or maybe since the policies that were followed were almost the same as those of the preceding administration, we have not noticed any real change.

The time is now coming for a real analysis of the economy and this will be done by the European Commission and defined in the next Budget Speech. The summer haze is giving way to autumnal storms as evidenced by the Fitch downgrade and related news.

And we have a ministry, that of the interior, that has become a byword for short-termism, for expediency, for taking decisions first and thinking about them later.

But the main thrust of the past six months, I think, has been the mad rush of the faithful to occupy all posts that somehow or other have become available.

The first wave must have been that which led to the largest Cabinet in Malta’s history. I still refuse to believe the Cabinet was chosen by Joseph Muscat on his own and I have come to the conclusion his hand must have been forced many a time in what is his prerogative.

Then came the second wave as the new ministers chose their teams.

But just as the members of the new Cabinet mix the good with the mediocre, not to say the bad, so too the ministerial teams have become mostly those who pushed and barged in rather than those who would have been suited for the job.

Now we are on the third wave, outside the ministerial teams and at the deep end of the government workings as people are pushed aside or made to ask to be transferred so as to accommodate those who shout the loudest.

I have been watching the faces of those on top and there are very little signs of comfort in the post. On the contrary, I have seen many furtive faces and glances, as if someone knows they have stolen what is not theirs and they are trying to hide what they did. Or maybe that’s just my impression.

Behind these new faces there is still a very long queue waiting. They are coming to realise that all the seats have been taken and are livid as a result.

For this exposes that the leitmotif of the Labour campaign, ‘Malta taghna lkoll’ was purely and simply electoral spin. Those who fell for it have only themselves to blame.

I had reported it at the time from both sides of the electoral divide: this seems to be what people expect from their candidates – jobs, possibly with the government, possibly not doing much, then housing, and promotions. Maybe the order gets changed around from person to person.

A deeper study should be made on this clientele approach. Maybe no other country has such a comparable high quotient of clientelism. Or maybe Italy, or Sicily, has.

This makes nonsense of politics as we normally conceive it. No factors of macroeconomics come in, no Left or Right as we know them. Political science goes out the window. In a way, the refusal to play this game, and then the far-too-late attempt to compensate, was what led to the downfall of the Gonzi administration. There were far more people who felt they had been passed over and who sought revenge than otherwise.

And this is precisely what will happen to Labour once the current euphoria of the few who have been chosen wears off. One can already hear the grumbling here and there, and rising.

I repeat: it is not a question of Labour supporters moving in (although the pre-electoral spin was of a ‘Moviment’ that was wider than the party: the camouflage has dropped now) but one would have hoped there would have been a certain restraint, rather than this Gadarene rush. And that a better selection was made instead of this pushing and shoving by those who are definitely not the right people for these posts.

There have been far too many appointments made without the proper procedures being followed, and this is a dangerous precedent. It is not possible to rebut that the previous PN administration did the same thing, although objectively they were never so blatant and so irresponsible.

PN must commit itself to acting on a non-partisan manner next time it is in power, as indeed it will be, sooner or later.

As I have just said, the present situation will not satisfy the numbers who want in and who right now find themselves out. Once one accepts the rationale that since Labour won the election all available posts must go to Labour supporters, there are simply not enough posts to satisfy the demand.

Once that happens, and people realize that many options are open, all of them bad.

Either we will see a war of attrition to force each and any supporter of the preceding administration to step aside. This is ethnic cleansing of the worst type, unacceptable in our country and will never be entirely successful. It is true that in PN times, many Labour supporters were passed over and excluded from the good jobs, but others were indeed appointed and promoted. Even now, six months after the election, past mistakes have not all been corrected. It makes no sense, there is no real justice, in doing to some PN supporters what was done to some MLP ones in the past. I admit that I do not have any solution to offer here.

Or else people get disenchanted and, worse, turn against the government they elected. I can see this happening around me and we will probably see this in action come the MEP elections. People are giving up on politics, on politicians. In this, at last, we are getting to what may be the European mean.

There is also the possibility of people becoming turncoats and switching their allegiance. This has happened, or we would not have had such an election result. But the experience of these past months shows this can be very short-lived.

In summary, all this should show those at the top that just as they climbed up to that height so too the road down is steep and a very slippery slope at that.

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