This week the Nationalist Party renewed itself from the very top, with the election of Dr. Bernard Grech after an inspirational campaign founded on unity and renewal. It is unwritten code in Malta’s political milieu, that parties do not put their nose into each other’s matters when it comes to these occasions. In fact, when the Labour Party came to choose its leader earlier this year, the PN media was virtually absent from any of the discussion about that. We respected the fact that Labour needed to resolve the Joseph Muscat mess and reflect on the best replacement between Dr. Fearne, backed by almost all of the labour Ministers, and the new-comer Dr. Abela.
Labour did not respect that code. It seems that the labour propaganda machine cannot fit into a value structure but is fuelled only by ruthless pursuit of ill-defined objectives. All along the PN leadership campaign, Labour TV and radio very strategically aimed at attaching carefully selected labels to the PN leadership candidates. Were this to be on an occasional coverage, it would possibly be justified by the need to entertain. However, this was not occasional, this was an obsession, taking up the priority at One stations in Marsa.
Thankfully, while the labour propaganda did seep to some extent within the jargon of nonlabour electorate, this did not trickle down too much, as PN party members evidently looked for more trusted sources to make up their mind on the candidates. Dr. Bernard Grech was in fact elected as Party leader with a historic 12,663 votes, the biggest expression of party support in Maltese history and roughly 4,000 votes more than Abela’s own victory in January.
Former Party Leader Dr. Adrian Delia handed over the keys of PN headquarters this week pledging sincere loyalty to Dr. Bernard Grech. Instantly, Labour lost virtually all of the political bullets used over the last months. The matter evidently troubled the hierarchy in the Labour Party so much so that in his first reactions to the PN renewal, the Honourable Prime Minister lost his cool by putting the blame of the highly disquieting possibility of a Moneyval downgrade on Dr. Bernard Grech. All observers followed with incredulity.
The Prime Minister’s cheap jibe downgrades first of all himself as an important institutional figure tasked with representing the nation. Secondly, it downgrades the very nature of politics in Malta. From our politicians we expect debate around solutions, such as the proposed Convention on Population and Migration proposed by Bernard Grech. Thirdly and most importantly, the Prime Minister’s cheap politics using the Moneyval process is despicable to the mammoth efforts being done all across our civil service to try to avert an impending Moneyval disaster.
Yes indeed. For while the labour politicians have led us here with FIAU reports gathering dust for three years and extremely serious corruption and graft allegations now surfacing to public attention, our civil service, the honest officials in the Government departments, experts in their field are now tasked with reverting track from the legendary Titanic iceberg a few miles ahead. They have our full support and solidarity.
My appeal to our Honourable Prime Minister is to pause for a second before speaking, to think about our honest civil service and the thousands of professional financial services and related practitioners risking their future due to Labour’s abuses. Dear Dr. Abela, please refrain from populistic retorts and focus on running the country in these very delicate times.
Our constitution endows the opposition with competences and roles meant to enrich and complement Government decision-making. It is degrading that the highest institution of this land has been reduced to a rubber-stamp of government policy worked around press conferences and One radio interviews.
Life-threatening challenges are on the horizon. COVID-19 and the highest mortality rate in Europe, important risks to the ground economy due to mistrust of investment and the mentioned Moneyval report, provoked and worsened at every turn by labour politicians. This is no time for populism. This is the time for cool-headed politics with a drive for concrete results.
The Nationalist Party’s performance in the last few days indicates clearly that the PN understands this and is gearing to respond to it. The Prime Minister thinks that his best shot is to ridicule the Nationalist Party efforts to rise up to the challenges of the nation by turning down Dr. Grech’s legitimate request for a mature discussion on the nation’s challenges. That is a childish misjudgement of the Maltese electorate.