Over the past few years, watching the country rocked by one scandal after another, I admit I was initially very confused about why the electorate never seemed to punish our politicians for their tomfoolery. I have since learned a great deal more about the way things actually work in this country, and propose some basic solutions to benefit everyone. After all, while our culture seems to enable clientelism, our family orientation helps us deal with a range of other social problems. We need to solve what is within reach.

Why, however, does the general public refuse to act in large numbers in the face of treachery by those they have elected? Just recently, an MFSA employee was given a golden handshake of €150,000 to retire him, only for him to be employed again a few weeks later as the head of the HR department of the Registry of Companies Agency. Just a few weeks before, the registry formed part of the same MFSA he was working in. It does not have to entail political interference for heads to roll. The real interference can be government refusing to take corrective action when our public institutions are abused; whether from inside or out.

The problems we have faced have gone far beyond the Panama scandal and the plundering of the public purse in ways both legal and illegal. We have faced environmental problems and the loss of public land to questionable private interests. So again, why do the majority of people do nothing?

It would be a mistake to dismiss the electorate as being itself corrupt, as some have done. Reality is not black or white, and such elitism can only put people off. We must build bridges and empathise. While it seems to be a fact that corruption is not prioritised by the majority as an issue, corruption is always something which harms the majority of people. So again; what stops people from punishing people who do them harm?

My answer to this problem lies in recognising that most of us live in echo chambers. There is nothing to gain by dismissing the electorate's feelings and desires. Instead, what they are lacking is impartial information to seek their best interests. Most of us rely on ONE News or NET for our daily sound bites. The two major political parties control radio, newspapers and television. On top of that, at the każin, one can be expected to be passed down propaganda - enforced by social bonds and an engineered partisan atmosphere.

It is not the case that the electorate does not care when public officials steal from them, but rather there is little awareness about how things could be better. Ugly truths are powdered over and sprayed with perfume to look like something else. After all, what does the man in the street gain from somebody dipping their hand in his pocket?

Every time we cash a cheque, a portion of that money goes into a collective pot as taxes. The idea, of course, is that money should benefit everyone. I shudder to think, every time I pay my taxes, where that money really goes. I am sure many others would do the same if they escaped their echo chambers.

The solution, to begin with, would ideally be the shutting down all party controlled propaganda machines, or at least their total independence from the parties being enforced by new laws. We also need a genuinely impartial Public Broadcasting Service, not one which is chaired by representatives of PN and PL as is currently the case. There should be a consistent platform available for representatives of other parties to debate each other and challenge the status quo with healthy and fresh ideas.

At the moment, people only have some radio stations and the independent newspapers to turn to for facts. There is little space for truth rather than propaganda. Independent media should team up to demand a larger share of the field from the space dominated by the parties. Then, while it will not tinker with culture, it will at least give people the information they need to reach their own conclusions. Hopefully, tribalism will begin to make way for real solutions and less partisanship. It is in everyone’s best interest.