The Labour Party’s pre-2013 election battle-cries are coming back to haunt it big time.

When in Opposition, the Labour Party laid its foundations for its victory on issues which it felt were hitting the people hard. It promised a roadmap leading away from the difficulties people were facing every day. It said it had all the solutions to all the problems that the Nationalist administration was facing.

And many people believed Joseph Muscat and his magic wand, so much so that they gave him the largest ever win in political history.

Today, nearly midway through his term in office, Joseph Muscat has failed to deliver on his most crucial promises.

You will remember that the past legislature ended with the eruption of the oil scandal, which was timed perfectly to deal the final blow to the Gonzi administration. Joseph Muscat had then used the uproar to pledge a cleaner government, one that is more transparent with the public. But facts have proven otherwise. The Cafe Premier issue which was followed up by the Gaffarena scandal are just two of the situations in which the government did the opposite of what it promised. The €88 million guarantee on the power station – which will be paid out of our pockets should the project fail – was yet another decision which was the wrong one to take.

Which takes us to Labour’s major promise, that of having a power station ready within two years. As you all know, the deadline expired five months ago, and we are still without a power station. More than this, we do not really know if we will have one. The government is silent on the progress of the project, if there’s any progress at all. In the meantime, the frequent power cuts which are hitting the islands in the hot summer months expose a fragile situation in this sector. In this regard, we are slowly going back to the 80s when we were never sure we would be able to watch TV (black and white, unless you knew someone important) every time we woke up.

Where we’re definitely going back to the 1980s is in the environment sector. The Mepa demerger will once again give the minister responsible the opportunity to wipe out any decision taken with the stroke of a pen. That’s what used to happen in the 1980s, and that’s what will start to happen again now. Mepa is far from being perfect, but the reform the government is pushing through will make matters worse. Joseph Muscat promised to listen to what the people are saying, but there’s a chasm between what he says and what he does. And the way he will go on with the Zonqor university on ODZ land in spite of public protests goes to prove this.

There are issues in public transport too. The Labour Party when in Opposition, aided by friendly journalists, made a big deal out of the troubles Arriva faced in its first months of operation. We had daily reports about the unreliable and inefficient service. Labour’s attack on Arriva remained after it was elected, with Arriva finally giving up. But matters have gone from bad to worse with the new Spanish operator. The system is a complete failure with buses turning up more than an hour late and vehicles that are overloaded. But there is no public outcry and Samson journalists who were Labour’s right hand men to demonise Arriva have lost their hair on this one and are no longer interested in pushing this particular agenda.

The same goes for our hospital. Under the Nationalist government, there were overcrowding issues and surgery delays. But, like in transport, the situation has gone from bad to worse. The government first pulled away from contracts with the private sector, only to realise that they were needed to support the centralised system. But two years were lost in the process and the problems have since accumulated. Added to this, the crisis situations which were experienced in the cold winter months are now everyday occurrences, with the Medical Association of Malta issuing a strongly-worded statement on Saturday which, to this day, the government has not found the time to reply. The crisis we had in winter under a PN administration is now a year-round crisis under Labour.