The billboards with the word “saħħa” keep on coming from the Labour Party.

It is the slogan that the PL has chosen for the European Parliament and local council elections, slated for Saturday.

And it seems like a taunt, or arrogance, or a mixture of both.

Labour probably intended “saħħa” to refer to the people’s power. It has been harping on this from the word go, with Prime Minister Robert Abela speaking about the power of the vote as a way to boost his government, and also as a vote against the judiciary, given that in recent times the PL has made the Bench as its number one enemy. The Nationalist Party has the courts on its side, one minister boasted, but the power lies in the people’s vote.

But “saħħa” also means “health” in Maltese, and we all know that the Labour Party does not have a positive record when it comes to the health sector. And therefore for the party to choose this single word which has brought so much trouble and concern – both to the party and, worse, to the country – amounts to an affront to the people, coupled with conceit.

The health sector has been in the news for the wrong reasons for months now. And it’s not only because of long waiting lists, shortage of medicine and a public hospital that has grown too small to cater for the country’s needs (and it is only now that the government has woken up to smell the coffee, and has frantically come up with a plan, announced during this election campaign, in a bid to create more beds).

The health sector has been under the spotlight because of the deal which the Labour government entered into – to be fair, when Joseph Muscat was Prime Minister and when Konrad Mizzi was responsible for the health portfolio – to have three public hospitals passed on to be run by private companies, first Vitals, and later Stewart. But it is also fair to say that Robert Abela and Chris Fearne, who respectively succeeded Muscat and Mizzi, kept on pumping millions into the deal in spite of not seeing any tangible improvements.

That deal, reached in 2015, was annulled by a court judgment which described it as having been “fraudulent”, a sentence that was confirmed by an appeals court which spoke of “collusion”. The case was instituted by the former Opposition Leader Adrian Delia.

And now, following a magisterial inquiry which dissected the agreement, Muscat, Mizzi, Fearne and others are in the dock facing criminal charges.

So, really and truly, “saħħa” should have been the last thing that Labour should have thought about when discussions were taking place internally before the party chose its slogan for the election.

And yet, there it is, plastered on tens of billboards the PL has set up these past few weeks, while Prime Minister Abela never fails to mention it in any of his public interventions.

It does feel like a taunt. Labour feels so strong, so invincible that it does not mind deriding the public by choosing as its slogan the word that relates to a sector where the PL has done so much wrong.

It does feel like arrogance. Labour knows it is going to win anyway, so it feels it can throw “saħħa” in the people’s faces even though it has failed miserably. It will not lose any votes because of this haughtiness.

Labour should not just think of its supporters. It should look at the bigger picture, and those who belong to no party should be shown more respect.