No election campaign can be mounted in the absence of rhetoric. This gets built around phrases and slogans that frame appeals and proposals of all kinds. A good part of it would be exagerrated and partisan; but that’s politics. However a substantial quota of such  rhetoric serves to address the essential challenges faced by a society.  Which is why one has to ask what is hidden in it.

I believe that from under the cover of the rhetoric unleashed by the ongoing election campaign in Malta a conclusion that has long been evident can surely be drawn: the two major parties that compete with each other, are doing so from the political centre, one leaning towards the “left”, the other towards the “right”. Ideological references have been cut down to practically zilch. There are few issues which radically differentiate the parties. Easily, the programme being promoted by one could have been  proposed by the other.

So the major contest revolves around who is best able to carry out what is being proposed.The choice ends up as one between personalities who – for the better or for the worse, truly or less so – represent a scenario of action that a future government would be implementing.

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AN UNBALANCED LABOUR MARKET

It has been claimed that too many foreign workers are active in Malta so that we have become vulnerable to economic paralysis should they leave. It is being said that too many people are employed by the government, among whom some have nothing to do – while the private sector is not finding employees and is forced to import foreign labour. An argument made is that the remuneration practised by many private enterprises does not allow for “decent” or “attractive” wages, which is why these enterprises lose people.

One has to keep in mind that not all claims are necessarily correct. But that there exist serious disequilibria in the labour market, does not sound like an improbable conclusion. To the contrary.

When the election hubbub has calmed down, the new government would be well-advised to request a deep study of the Maltese labour market to clearly determine where disequilibria exist, what they consist of exactly, and how they could be resolved in order to ensure that the human resources we have in this country are being deployed in the best possible manner.

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THE INVASION OF UKRAINE

I have long said, and agreed with those who said, that Russia has had legitimate grounds about which to complain that it was being badly treated by the “West”. It is also true that the points Russia raised about its security with reference to the Ukraine (and to other countries formerly “belonging” to the Soviet bloc) cannot just be ignored, as Western leaders wished to do.

However, in no way can one now approve or defend Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine. It amounts to a flagrant breach of international law. A war is only justified when the strongest possible reasons can be invoked for it as urgent events arise that create a most serious threat. In this case, there was neither threat nor urgency.

Russia is indeed guilty of an act of agression that deserves total condemnation. It will greatly damage Russia’s own interests.