Labour Party exponent and diehard Mario Philip Azzopardi has described the party’s primetime political show ‘Pjazza’ as “nauseating” to the point that it follows the propaganda style famously mentioned in George Orwell dystopic novel 1984.
Pjazza is aired on Labour Party TV station ONE TV in primetime and is presented by Karl Stagno Navarra, who turned to the party from the PN some years ago.
Considered as firm home turf for the Labour Party, it turns out however that many – as shown in the comments to Azzopardi’s post – feel that the programme has become too cosy and has done away with any form of serious analysis or debate.
“I’m sorry to say that Pjazza has become nothing more than a propaganda programme without any serious analysis. Frantic and nauseating partisanism in the style of George Orwell’s 1984”, Azzopardi wrote on Facebook on Thursday.
“Labourites deserve mature discussions, not empty words which always sound the same. Labourites don’t deserve to be treated like children who don’t know how to think. Leave that in the hands of the PN, which already does that in the most double-faced of manners”, he said.
Azzopardi did not fail to show his obvious political colours in his post, saying that the PL does not need to “imitate Malta’s traitors” – a frequent piece of rhetoric used by more extreme parts of the Labour Party towards anyone whom they deem to be working against the government. Azzopardi last year in fact got himself into hot water when he called PN MEP Roberta Metsola a "sick woman" and a "traitor" who was hated by the whole country.
“The programme used to be much better, but now it’s just a platform so that one Minister after another can repeat the same song”, Azzopardi said, turning his attention back to Stagno Navarra’s show.
He said that the current period – likely a reference to yesterday’s FATF decision to grey-list Malta’s financial jurisdiction – is a challenging one, and that if the “same disc is played day after day” then the PL would be damaging itself and making the road to “mature reasoning” longer and more difficult.
“We can win because we have reason, scientific, logical, mature, and solid arguments, not because we know how to beat our own chests. We’re not stupid. We want constructive analysis and criticism, not Stalinist propaganda”, he said.
“Only that way can we fix tomorrow’s mistakes, and because we are human, mistakes will be made for sure”, he added.
He concluded by saying that Pjazza remains important as a programme, but only as long as it respects the national intelligence and maturity – adding that Labourites deserve more than what they are getting now.
The criticism comes from close to home: theatre producer Azzopardi is one of the most party's most ardent supporters, and he coordinated the party's Taghna Lkoll campaign in the 2013 general election.