A year ago, we were gearing up for the last and final shove in a long campaign, which the Labour Party won with an unprecedented astounding majority. The reasons for such result have been exhausted and the country has rightly moved on with a new Labour government at the helm. Labour’s clarion call for change, meritocracy and equal opportunities featured in Joseph Muscat’s every speech and press event.

All this became history on 10 March – the day Muscat got what he wanted.

Meritocracy was the call Muscat forgot about quickest and in an abrupt manner. We all remember the notorious phrase “Tista’ ma taqbilx maghna, izda tista’ tahdem maghna (You might not agree with us, but you can still work with us).” I am certain that today, one year down the line, many will beg to differ.

On day one, Muscat replaced the principal Permanent Secretary, appointing a former senior official of the GWU and a close ally of Muscat. The person whose specific role in the Civil Service is to ensure continuity from one administration to another was done away with.

This was following by a barrage of political appointments, feeding not only the majority of notorious Labour activists, but also their spouses, children and relatives where possible.

Muscat went as far as changing the law to enable his MPs to sit on government boards and entities. The same person who thought it fit to massacre the preceding administration with regard to the honoraria increase was not troubled to give three salaries to some of his colleagues. Just to mention the last awardee, Debono Grech got his pension topped up for a ‘job’ someone else is supposedly already doing, in the same week we got to know that unemployment figures continued to soar and a pharmaceutical company laid off 110 employees.

Muscat showed his true colours in the summer months. Irregular migrants started landing on our shores, seeking refuge and protection. The international media reported hundreds of dead corpses in the Mediterranean Sea and a record overflow of migrants in neighbouring island Lampedusa. While visiting Lampedusa to meet these people and to campaign for more support from the EU institutions with a delegation of youth leaders from YEPP, our Prime Minister called on the EU to wake up and smell the coffee. And he did this not simply using his “British sense of humour” fail. He did this by personally ordering his functionaries to carry out all necessary arrangements to send these migrants seeking refuge back to wherever they came from. Yes – even if they hailed from Eritrea.

Then came the cash-for-citizenship saga, exposing the arrogance and sloppiness of this Labour government. Claims by several ministers contradicting each other and others stating that we’re an untalented nation were the order of the day for four entire months. Barring Minister Mallia’s executive ineptitude (which really needed no confirmation), this was his umpteenth embarrassment. Of course, one cannot forget those police officers acting as cleaners and waiters; or his chief of staff sitting for AFM recruitment interviews; or his role in the oil procurement scandal as legal counsel of one of the accused parties.

The extent of Muscat’s propaganda machine deceit is also clear in two particular sectors.

Firstly, we learn that the Delimara power station is not the “fabbrika tal-kancer” Muscat painted it to be. This was confirmed by a Mepa report affirming that the BWSC plant did not in fact increase particulate matter. The electoral ploy at Marsaxlokk projecting imminent danger and health risk concerns for Marsaxlokk and the southern communities was another tool Muscat used to achieve his goal. After all, the ends do justify the means (Muscat dixit).

Secondly, Labour had declared having a clear roadmap for the health sector. The chaos in this sector is unprecedented. We witnessed a minister breaching his code of ethics (because Muscat didn’t grant him a waiver unlike other Cabinet members), a record-high inventory of out-of-stock medicines and marquees to serve as hospital emergency areas. You would think you have seen it all, when Minister Farrugia (or Dalli, whoever is leading the plot) pulls another one out of the hat.

I believe it’s time for Muscat to practice what he preached. His honeymoon has long been over, but while unemployment figures soar and foreign investment has started leaving our shores, he’s still in the business of rewarding the ones who gave him all he wanted.

Kevin Plumpton is a Nationalist Party candidate in the forthcoming European parliamentary elections