Malta is one of the most politically polarised placed in Europe, if not the world. Some look at our voting habits and our political allegiances and say that it is the mark of a very healthy democracy.

Others say that our inane obsession with politicising each and every single thing is immature. In truth, both camps are right. While there was a massive swing in the last elections, it is abundantly clear that while both political parties have preached of change, nothing much has changed in terms of blind competition between the two political parties.

In today’s issue, President Emeritus George Abela says that a good example was in the issue of rogue oil trader George Farrugia’s granting of immunity from prosecution. Dr Abela said that he was convinced that his signing it was the right thing to do in order for the truth to come out. The purpose of this leading article is not to debate whether it was right or wrong to issue the immunity, but rather, to highlight a statement Dr Abela made.

The former President said that once a decision was taken it had to be respected. He said: "It seems that there is no continuity between one administration and the next. It is always a case of trying to dismantle what others did before you. If we want the truth to come out, instead of weakening it, we have to respect the decisions taken on the advice of those who are capable of investigating in search of the truth." 

This problem seems to have been endemic in the changeovers we have seen between one party and another when they are elected to government. In 1996, the Labour Party took over from the PN and proceeded to dismantle each and every thing that the preceding administration had done. The most obvious was Malta’s bid to join the European Union, which was frozen. But there were many other measures introduced which sought to negate or dismantle positives from the previous administration. The botched removal of VAT and the introduction of Sisa was one issue and the bungling in the redesign of Mater Dei Hospital were just a few instances. The same happened when the PL was returned to power in the last general election. In a previous leading article we had already touched upon the fact that one of the first acts of government was to ask all permanent secretaries within the civil service to resign. Civil servants, by definition, are there to ensure continuity between one government and the next and by asking for their removal, he government was hamstrung from day one.

The comments by Dr Abela are even more pertinent because they come from a person with a political past within Labour– a person who even contested for the leadership of the party. He was then appointed President by a Nationalist Prime Minister. What Dr Abela says is that people who were investigating the oil trading scandal were capable investigators and should have been listened to and that continuity from one administration from the next was of the essence, especially in this particular case. It seems that we still have much to learn. This happens in our country on a macro level, one can only begin to imagine what happens on a micro level and what will happen if councils change hands in the upcoming local elections.