The Nationalist Party has launched its manifesto for the upcoming general elections during the party’s general council on Thursday night.
The 200 or so page document sets out the party’s vision for the country across 30 points which encapsulates what the party stands for.
The manifesto is split across 15 themes with a total of 553 electoral measures. Over 270 further specific measures are expected to be published later on in the campaign.
The manifesto itself places emphasis on a number of sectors, but it is clear that the PN has given special emphasis to areas such as the environment, promoting a fairer society, and improving people’s dignity by emphasising on aspects such as a living income.
The Malta Independent has dived deep into some of the main proposals which fill the pages of the manifesto, but the full manifesto can be found here.
The PN’s core manifesto principle: ESG
Much of the PN’s manifesto is based on a principle called ‘ESG’ – which stands for Environment, Social responsibility, and Governance.
ESG is essentially a set of basic principles which companies or organisations must follow in order to be eligible for certain incentives and measures which a PN government would offer; principles such as, from a governance perspective, compliance with the tax man; from a social perspective, not employing people on zero-hour contracts and following directives on work-life balance rules; and from an environmental perspective, moves towards climate neutral measures.
The idea here is to reward those companies who operate by following the rules and build a society based on fairness, where businesses are not left at a competitive disadvantage if others in the same industry elect not to follow the most basic of rules.
The exact criteria for what constitutes compliance with ESG would be agreed upon between a PN government and social partners before being implemented and would be updated annually. Businesses and organisations would be assessed by a digital scorecard thereby eliminating human involvement, and the possibility of corruption as a result of that.
The idea of such a framework and tying it to many of the incentive measures which the PN would offer if they do get elected is to create a cultural shift which would favour those who follow the most basic principles in order to promote compliance.
Environment: A trackless tram proposal, adding ODZ land, and taking roads underground
The PN’s manifesto places special emphasis on the environment, with a number of significant measures on this topic.
Foremost amongst those is on transport. The PN’s manifesto essentially ditches the government’s plans for a metro – plans which were announced some months ago but where the coast has since gone eerily quiet.
Instead, the PN would implemented a system based around Trackless Trams – a somewhat novel type of mass transit which has taken hold particularly in China and, more recently, other parts of the world.
The main benefit of such a system is that this is an above-ground system and that it can be incorporated into the current road infrastructure which Malta has. The PN believes it would be far cheaper and far less environmentally intrusive – and of course far more feasible – than a metro would be.
The Malta Independent is informed that the party will be delving into a lot more depth on this proposal later on in the campaign, with the party’s transport cluster having already drafted a full plan of how and on what routes such a tram network would operate and how much it would cost.
On the road infrastructure itself, the PN also pledged to a plan which will base infrastructural improvement on moving roads underground, using the space created above ground as green open areas.
The party in its manifesto reiterated a promise it has already made: that land which is situated in an Outside Development Zone (ODZ) can only be changed to being within a development zone with the approval of two-thirds of parliament.
Further to that, the party is promising that it would actually increase the amount of land which is classified as ODZ, initially by 50,000 square metres of public land every year.
The party is also pledging to give local councils and environmental NGOs a bigger say – more than one vote, that is – in the planning process on major proposed development proposals.
Taxation: Re-investment of a company’s profits would be taxed at 15%
The PN’s manifesto contains a couple of bold promises when it comes to the tax sector, with taxation being a topic of focus owing to international developments which will likely see Malta have to abandon its current system of having hugely favourable tax rates for foreign-owned companies based in Malta.
In this sector, the PN is proposing the reduction of the tax rate on a business’ profits if those same profits are re-invested back into the business. This is applicable up to €500,000 in profits reinvested back into the business, which would be taxed at 15% rather than 35%.
This is one of those measures which only applies to companies which are compliant with the ESG framework.
Furthermore, the PN is also proposing that within five years the highest rate of taxation on both businesses and individuals would be reduced to 25%, and that the rate of social security contributions, VAT, and income tax would not increase during the legislature.
Wealth: New focus on living income
One of the points given prominence in the PN’s manifesto is also a change on focus from the minimum wage to what is being termed as the ‘living income’ – defined as the net income which a family requires in order to live a decent life.
The focus would mean that a PN government’s aim would be to see what is widely recognised as an inadequate minimum wage increase towards this living income. Social benefit and pension mechanisms will slowly also start to be worked out on the basis of this living income rather than on the minimum wage.
The PN has also proposed – as their first point in the manifesto, in fact – the implementation of a new mechanism of how the country’s wealth is calculated, so that this wealth is not just calculated on the basis of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) but would also include a number of other indicators.
The party is also placing emphasis on people being able to own their own homes, with one of these measures being that the party will pay 50% of the interest on a home loan of a first-time buyer for the first five years of that loan.
Governance: 5% threshold for any party to get to Parliament, electronic voting
The PN has said that one of the first things it would do if it were to come to power is to implement the recommendations made by the public inquiry into Daphne Caruana Galizia’s murder, and it has also included a number of legislative reforms it tabled in Parliament as a private member’s bill some months ago.
These include the appointment of a special inquiring magistrate dedicated to investigating corruption and a law on unexplained wealth orders which would be specifically for politically exposed persons (PEPs) and those accused of major crimes.
On a more practical level, the PN wants a renewed focus on local councils – in contrast with the Labour government’s move towards centralisation – and would also introduce the option of paying local council mayors to work in that position on a full-time basis.
The PN has also pledged to introduce electronic voting for European Parliament elections, local council elections, and referenda – but not for general elections, it seems.
Under a PN government, a reform to electoral law would also see any political party which receives 5% or more of the votes cast in a general election have the right to be represented in parliament.
More significantly, the PN’s manifesto reads that it would introduce legal mechanisms and a “style of leadership” which would involve members of the Opposition in Parliament more actively in places other than in Parliament.