Imagine, for argument’s sake, that a Nationalist government decided to permanently anchor a tanker containing gas off Ghar id-Dud, in Sliema.

Just try to envisage what the people of this Nationalist Party stronghold would do in protest against the idea. When, a few years ago, the PN administration had proposed a car park at Qui-si-Sana, protests by Sliema residents, including PN politicians, had led the government to abandon its plans.

Now, I know that, for logistical reasons, having a gas tanker off Ghar id-Dud is an idea that can never be proposed, given that the power station is elsewhere.

But I am taking this line of reasoning to question why the people of Marsaxlokk and Birzebbuga have remained silent over the government’s insistence to have this huge vessel, as large as three football fields, stationed in the bay for years on end.

While Nationalist Party supporters have no qualms – and this is how it should be – about protesting against a Nationalist government for doing the wrong thing, it is clear that Labour Party supporters are not prepared to go against a Labour government, even when they believe that the party they voted for has let them down.

The gas tanker will be an eyesore, one that will be yet another blot on this part of Malta which we like to call picturesque. It also poses a potential danger to the residents nearby, a risk that will have to be lived day after day.

And yet the people of the south of Malta have remained silent. Yes, in a survey that was held, 91% of them said they were against the government’s plan. But they did so anonymously, just as some of them wrote to the Prime Minister anonymously – and made their letter public – saying that they feel betrayed and used by Labour. But that’s where it stopped – an anonymous survey and an anonymous letter which exposes a kind of fear to express opposition to what the government is doing. Or, perhaps, Labour supporters just endorse what the party of their liking does, whatever it is.

There has been no public outcry by the people of the south of Malta. Their local councils, which are led by a Labour majority, have defended the project, and the residents they represent have accepted the situation. The mayor of Marsaxlokk has even questioned the anonymous letter, insisting that the idea of a tanker in the bay is safer than the original proposal of having two storage tanks onshore. Rather than take the side of the residents who elected him, and who in their large majority are silently concerned about the facility, the mayor chose to defend what the political party he represents is doing.

No protests or demonstrations have been held. And I strengthen my argument by recalling past situations when the roles were reversed. Try to remember the uproar that the people living in the south of Malta caused a few years ago when the Nationalist government planned the waste plant in Marsascala. Joseph Muscat was not Prime Minister then, but he was among the more vociferous against the project. And it was not just the people of Marsascala who protested. All other localities nearby were roped in by Labour in their protestations.

Going back in years even more, the deafening silence coming from the south of Malta today is in sharp contrast to what happened in the late 1980s, when the then Nationalist government had chosen Delimara as the site of the new power station. At the time, then Opposition leader Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici had led people in the streets to protest against the project, going as far as holding large manifestations in an attempt to block it.

What a difference today, when it is a Labour government that is behind a development that will have a negative impact on the livelihood of the people of the south.

Let’s see the situation from another angle. What if, again for argument’s sake, it had been a Nationalist government that proposed anchoring the tanker in the heart of Marsaxlokk Bay? Would the residents of this locality have remained silent? Would the local councils representing them have kept their mouths shut as they are doing today? Would Labour have welcomed the plan with open arms?

I guess you all know what the answers to those questions are.

It is clear that the people of Marsaxlokk and the surrounding areas, where Labour has a four-to-one superiority, do not speak up against their own government and party. They were very quick to go on Labour’s bandwagon when Joseph Muscat spoke of cancer and asthma factories – and they showed this with their overwhelming vote in PL’s favour in the last election. But now that they are at the wrong end of a decision taken by the Labour government, one that will affect their lives and on which they do have concerns, they are not prepared to be vocal about it.

There is another side to the story – and this is the silence on the part of the majority of Labour MPs who were elected from that particular district and others close by. Only Marlene Farrugia has spoken up about the issue, saying that the government should put the project on hold and that the gas pipeline is the best option. I give her credit for this, but given that she has already announced that she will not contest the next election, she has nothing to lose.

The other Labour MPs, who go knocking on doors on the eve of an election, have not spoken up – and by this I take it to mean that they are tacitly approving the idea. Before the election, they had pledged to defend the people of their electoral districts and they often spoke in public about what they described as irresponsible negligence on the part of the Nationalist government regarding the south of the country. Today, they are completely absent in the debate.

This completes the totally different picture to what had happened with the proposed Qui-si-Sana car park.

[email protected]