Today’s Sunday newspapers are undoubtedly replete with analyses of the Labour Party’s first year in government. Some, depending on which side of the political fence they stand, will be full of praise while others will haul the current administration over the hot coals for its performance so far.

But, truth be told, this government’s first year has been something of a mixed bag – there has been the good and also the bad, and weighing those issues on balance is more of a subjective rather than an objective exercise.

Issues such as the great citizenship-for-sale debate, the prospective mooring of a natural gas floating storage unit inside Marsaxlokk Bay for the new power station have greatly overshadowed the several positive developments that this government has undertaken.

The largest of these positive developments concern the area of civil rights, where the minister responsible has done some sterling work. From the upcoming introduction of civil unions and all that it means for gay rights to the new protocol of the Church-State agreement removing the Ecclesiastical Tribunal’s superiority over the Civil Courts in marriage annulments, and to the institution of transgender rights – this government has taken the proverbial bull by the horns.

Along these lines, the government has performed admirably and in so doing it has also sent out the right messages to the populace. In the process, it is also leading the country out of the Dark Ages mentality it has existed in for far too long now when it comes to civil rights.

Another enormously positive step was made when the government unveiled reforms of the public school system, including the giant leap to co-education and the option to swap religion classes for ethics classes. Both initiatives bring Malta in line with today’s realities and the scholastic situation of Maltese students’ European peers, peers they will compete with in the future not only in the job markets but in the overall stakes of life.

As the Prime Minister says in an interview in today’s issue, this administration has, naturally, been subject to a learning curve, with the Labour Party as a whole having been some 25 years in Opposition – minus the short-lived stint in power of the Alfred Sant government between 1996 and 1998.

That there has been a learning curve is natural, as natural as the fact that it is still too early to judge this government’s performance across the board. There are a number of seeds that need to be planted for the country to reap the harvest further down the road. And in so doing, the government had also set about implementing many of its electoral pledges as soon as it took office.

But while this government has undeniably performed in many areas, there are two main issues that many out there see as having tarnished its record: the Individual Investor Programme and its handling of the irregular migration issue.

Both issues taken individually on their own merits are contentious enough, but for both issues to have been tabled in the same year struck many here in Malta and abroad as simply preposterous.

That is because on a fundamentally moral level, there is something inherently discordant with a government that on the one hand seeks to forcibly return irregular migrants to a place where they cannot be guaranteed any sort of protection of their most basic human rights, and which, on the other, says it is preparing to welcome with open arms people willing to pay hundreds of thousands of euros for a Maltese passport.

Back in July 2013, the government threatened to return newly arrived sub-Saharan irregular migrants back to an uncertain fate in Libya, where two of them had reportedly been shot while escaping from detention there and who had their wounds treated at Mater Dei upon arrival. The government was only stopped from proceeding with its plans, for which it had actually booked two Air Malta charter flights for that very same night, through the last minute intervention of the European Court of Justice.

Not long after that, the government published its draft legislation that would grant Maltese citizenship to people prepared to pay €650,000 for it. Europe’s parliamentarians cried foul en masse but after a somewhat questionable tweak to the programme’s residency requirements, it was approved by the European Commission in a move that will perhaps open the floodgates for a plethora of like-minded schemes across Europe.

But that dichotomy’s bottom line message was that if you have cash you are welcome, Malta will give you citizenship at the right price, but the world’s most persecuted and impoverished need not apply – not even for asylum. The numerous attempts to render the citizenship programme more palatable were fumbled time and time again, but perhaps the less said about those follies the better.

As far as the economy goes, it is still far too early to judge this government’s performance. On the disputed jobs front, it is still far too premature for the government to take credit for today’s employment rates, or for the Opposition to blame the government for failing to create jobs. On the one hand, any positive news could be put down to the seeds planted by the last administration, and on the other it is still far too early to pass judgement on whether the government’s plans have yielded fruit, fruit which takes some time to ripen.

The same goes for economic growth, but perhaps by this time next year we will be able to have a clearer picture of how this government has truly performed on jobs and the economy – the real bread and butter issues.

Whatever the case and wherever one stands on the political divide, as citizens of this country we must all wish this government every success in its endeavours. May the next year, in fact may the next four bring this government resounding success. After all, the government’s success is also the people’s success and that is, after all, what it is all about.