The State of the Nation survey that was commissioned by the Office of the President, the results of which were made public in a one-day conference earlier this month, gave a deep insight on what the Maltese people think on many subjects.

One of the questions that were asked to the survey participants was whether their opinion is influenced by what the political party they support says.

Just over 30 per cent said “yes”, lower than the 32.8 per cent last year and 43.9 per cent in 2021. Another 42.6 per cent replied “no”, higher than the 38.3 per cent in 2022 and 29.4 per cent the year before.

These are good signs. It means that the number of people who think with their own head and do not rely on what politicians say is growing.

One must, however, point out that there are another 26.8 per cent of the Maltese who replied “not always”. It would be good to know “when” they choose to follow their party, and when not to. Is it on the bigger decisions, those that have a strong bearing on the country, or the little things, those that have little impact on the overall well-being or reputation? This is a difficult question to answer, but it is likely that the more serious the situation is, the more people wait for their party’s direction before deciding what their own position is.

After all, ministers always wait until the Prime Minister speaks, especially when the issue in hand in delicate, and follow and repeat his line of thinking; so it’s not really a surprise that there are so many people who wait for their party to speak before joining in with the same thoughts.

It is also good to note that the younger the respondents, the higher the percentage of people who say that they do not wait for their political party’s statements before forming their opinion. It means that we are moving away from political dogma and, hopefully, the trend will continue in the years to come.

On the reverse side, the fact that one third of the population still waits for their party to express itself before making up their mind is of concern. If one, then, had to add those who yo-yo in between following their party’s opinion or forming their own depending on the situation, it’s clear that more than half of the respondents still rely on what their party thinks on many occasions and that, as explained earlier, it is probable that this happens mostly on the more serious issues.

What comes to mind immediately when going into such statistics is that, unfortunately, there are still too many people who are open to listening to just one side of the story. Their only source of information would be the political stations they follow, which more often than not give a distorted or incomplete picture. In this sense, PBS has a duty to provide unbiased news reporting, a task that very often it fails to achieve.

But we do urge those 30 per cent – and the 26.8 per cent who replied “not always” – to inform themselves properly before making up their mind about something. Listening (just) to a party radio station or (only) visiting politically-biased websites is not the right way.