The 2013 general election was fought, by and large, on the battleground of good governance. The then Labour Opposition had declared a war on the corruption of the incumbent government and pledged to introduce the good governance, transparency and accountability that it said was so sorely lacking.

People flocked to the banner and the electorate swallowed those pledges hook, line and sinker – and effectively swept the Labour Party to the most convincing electoral victory in Maltese history.

Since then, things have taken a distinct turn for the worse. Virtually no section of the public service has been left untainted by allegations of cronyism, impropriety or some other kind of scandal.  The house of cards built by the heavily campaigning Labour Party at the end of 2012 and the beginning of 2013 appears to have lacked the glue to keep it bound together.

One minister, Manuel Mallia, has been shown the door after his driver’s now infamous shooting incident and after a string of accusations against him, while another, Michael Falzon, is seeing the door ajar for him to make an exit once investigations into the Old Mint Street-Gaffarena scandal are made public.

As for Dr Mallia, many would argue that he should have been relieved of his ministerial portfolio well before the shooting incident, and even then he failed to do the honourable thing and resign of his own accord – he had to be forced out by the Prime Minister.

As for Dr Falzon, the investigations into the alleged wrongdoings on Old Mint Street are dragging on for a long time. The initial investigation has been completed and the second investigation is being conducted within the Office of the Prime Minister – the same office under whose auspices Dr Falzon’s parliamentary secretariat falls.

If the investigation finds that Dr Falzon had a hand in the dubious deal, the Prime Minister will have to answer a lot of questions as to why Dr Falzon was left in office for so many weeks when the investigation’s main conclusions were known to the Prime Minister.

We have had another Labour leading backbencher, Marlene Farrugia, part ways with the party and become an independent MP after the Mepa demerger bills debacle and her accusations of anything-but-good-governance on the part of the party of which she once formed part. She has since begun voting, on environmental issues at least, in favour of the Nationalist opposition. She has also been repeatedly saying that she would vote for the Opposition were an election to be held today.

On the other side of the House, we have seen the departures of Joe Cassar and Giovanna Debono from the party. Mrs Debono resigned from the party and stayed on in Parliament as an independent MP. She says she did so in the interest of the party as court cases in her respect are ongoing. 

Dr Cassar, meanwhile, resigned from Parliament after allegations that he accepted gifts, in the form of some €8,000 in work carried out at a property from a member of the Gaffarena family while he was a Cabinet minister. While there was nothing illegal in the act itself, it was highly immoral and in clear contravention of the ministerial code of ethics to which he had been bound. Dr Cassar committed a political sin and he has paid the ultimate political price for his actions by having resigned first from his party position and then from Parliament.

Despite his sin, his actions showed pure accountability.

Against this backdrop, the Nationalist Party will today unveil the most wide-ranging set of proposals for good governance that the country has possibly ever seen. The PN has left virtually no stone unturned in its bid to position itself as the party that will, at long last, instil good governance, political accountability and transparency to this country.

Some people may ask why the PN did not do all it is proposing today when it was in power.  The answer is that today there is a new leader who clearly means business when it comes to good governance. 

The PN with today’s document sets a new bar, a new standard that the government must rise to, lest it is to suffer the same fate it dealt to the Nationalist Party at the last general election, and with the same weapon.

After the 2013 general election defeat so heavily tinged with allegations of corruption against the incumbent, and after the utter failing of this government to take corruption and good governance head-on, with this new approach to doing politics being unveiled today, the Opposition has, in a way, come full circle. And in the process it has pulled the good governance rug from under the government’s feet.

The document being launched today truly attempts – and succeeds in many ways – to put the ‘good’ into good governance.