We all remember Barack Obama’s popular slogan “Yes We Can” in his first and successful US presidential campaign. It was a slogan copied all over the world as politicians of every colour and hue chose to outdo other politicians.
The Labour Party had its own hugely successful slogan in the March 2013 general election (“Malta Taghna Lkoll”), but there was indeed one particular instance when Joseph Muscat and his spokesmen on energy at the time had to come up with the prompt retort of “Yes We Can” to the then government’s insistence there was no alternative to the heavy-fuel-oil plant at the Enemalta power-station in Delimara.
The whole issue centred on the use of the highly polluting elements of heavy fuel oil and the threat to people’s health from its 24/7 emissions. Labour said that if elected, it would switch to a gas-generated plant, considered much less dangerous and certainly less polluting. Before it had mysteriously changed the law to permit use of the heavy fuel oil option, the Nationalist government had been more than aware of most experts’ scientific view that gas was a much better choice.
Everybody was telling them so, but they chose to ignore all advice and move on with their plans for a heavy fuel oil plant that was also built under the dark, heavy shadow of suspicions about corruption, sky-high commissions and a lot of wheeling and dealing. For them, there was no going back. The Nationalist government had decided for us all and we just had to accept that decision.
Muscat electoral promise
Not Joseph Muscat. The Labour leader quickly assured the electorate a new government would switch the Delimara power-station to gas from heavy fuel oil and, in the process, not only help create a cleaner air and do away with the horrible giant chimney the Nationalists had saddled the Marsaxlokk/Zejtun/Delimara/Birzebbuga region with in the early 90s, but also provide for reduced water and electricity rates for all families in Malta and Gozo. Gas is cleaner and cheaper.
To the Nationalists’ extreme horror and disbelief, Joseph Muscat went into Obama mode and replied: “Yes We Can”. As electoral promises go, this was one hell of a pledge, amplified by the fact that Labour was saying it would carry out the technological switch in its first year and in harmony with the process of drastically reducing water and electricity bills.
To some, this sounded incredulous. To Nationalist ears it was practically political blasphemy, which is probably why they soon resorted to its caricature. To the vast number of Maltese and Gozitan families and industries of all shapes and sizes, it meant there was finally someone thinking of taking them out of their financial and economic plight, for energy bills were, after all, their major source of everyday concern.
Fast forward to today. Tomorrow, 31 March, just a couple of weeks since Labour’s first anniversary back in power, energy bills come down by a massive average of 25%. Next year it will be industry’s turn to enjoy the same privilege. Impossible? Incredible? Utopian? Not anymore.
Labour said “Yes we can” on the issue just a few months ago. The feeling in general now is “Yes we could”.
[email protected]
Joseph Cuschieri is Head of the Labour Delegation in the European Parliament