After months of defending the project and hinting that the government would steamroll ahead with the development, the Prime Minister announced on Tuesday that the proposed Marsascala marina has been scrapped.

The country breathed a collective sigh of relief as it became known that the ugly monster that was set to replace swimming zones and berthing spaces at the seaside town would not materialise.

But the fact that the Prime Minister announced the cancellation of the project right at the start of an election campaign smacks of populism.

Just until last week, infrastructure minister Ian Borg was justifying the project by saying that even a Nationalist administration had built a yacht marina in Vittoriosa. For weeks and weeks, Borg had ignored protests by NGOs, calls by the Opposition and even complaints by the Labour-led Marsascala council against the project. Despite the public outcry, Borg tried to give the impression that it was only the Nationalist Party that had come out against the project, even pinpointing a particular Nationalist candidate who had attended the protests organised by Moviment Graffitti and others.

Now, Borg has been proved wrong by his own party leader, who has finally realised that the project was not going to win Labour any votes, and that can never be a good thing five weeks before the country heads to the polls.

Even if Abela won’t admit it, this massive u-turn on the project is nothing but a vote of no confidence in the transport minister.

And this was not the only sign. Abela has been insisting in the first days of the campaign that the government will embark on a change in direction. Whereas before, it was focusing on mega-projects to boost the economy, it will now go for a more balanced approach in order to safeguard the environment. This was also the stance adopted by the government when it announced it would take back the land that had previously given to the American University of Malta in Zonqor.

At face value, this means that massive projects like the Marsa junction and the Central Link are a thing of the past, or at least that projects of this scale will be carried out in more environmentally sensitive way. No more ‘Ian tal-mannara.’

Ian Borg (if he is again elected and re-appointed infrastructure minister) and Infrastructure Malta will have to find a new way of doing things, if the Prime Minister is to be held to his word.

But back to Abela. The recent reversals on the decisions on Zonqor and the Marsascala marina show that, at least on environmental issues, this government has only listened because the people will vote in a few weeks’ time.

One now hopes that Zonqor and the marina will not be the only decisions to be reversed. If the government truly believes in changing tack and start protecting the environment, it needs to look at other issues and areas too.

New green spaces are good, but they will not make up for the rampant construction and overdevelopment, and they will not make up for flawed planning policies.

If Labour is truly putting the environment at the top of its agenda, it needs to address these issues too.