Historically, Malta has an enviable record of voter turnout at general elections. Up until a few decades ago, voter turnout rates were consistently high, often above 90 percent. However, in the last two general elections, on aggregate, voter turnout has been declining. This is alarmingly dangerous. The expression of opinions through voting is what representative democracy is all about, and low turnout leads directly to biassed representation, having disproportionate influence on the makeup of government, the issues that get on the political agenda, and ultimately policy outcomes.

If you listen to the most common complaints about Malta today, whether from the left or from the right, they usually come down to some version of the same complaint. People believe there is too much corruption, too much hypocrisy, and too much self-dealing. Malta’s institutions no longer work in practice the way we all pretend and say. Those who affect and control our lives do not care about us, do not respect our dignity as human beings, and will not give us a fair shot. The specifics and the vocabulary may vary, as may who the people are in charge and who the people are who find themselves shut out, but this core complaint remains: a fair opportunity to rise is closed. Many Maltese no longer believe Malta offers a true and equal chance to pursue their dreams.

This complaint is not just about money or status, as shallowly defined. It is about dignity. It is about a society that considers every citizen to be a full social equal worthy of the same opportunities and respect. Not only for themselves but also for their families and communities, their spouses, children, parents, grandchildren, family, and friends. Put simply, there is a growing loss of faith in the manner in which our country is supposed to be moving forward.

Despite our sincerest hopes for a deus ex machina to arrive to fix our main political parties for us, we should all know by now that it is not going to happen. Those parties are on a locked-in path to destruction and decline. That path ends with two ugly parties that few of us like and none of us should want. It means hard years ahead as politics descend further into turmoil, the culture gets more angry, and the government fails to act as Malta gradually declines. Ultimately, it means political failure and collapse until we are forced to rebuild from the wreckage.

If we hope to fix our politics, it is almost certainly going to have to come from outside the current political class and its partisan institutions. A new movement of Maltese will have to somehow come together, united around a compelling message about the future. It will need to develop fresh ideas about how we can meet new challenges and solve them. It will have to unite Maltese into new coalitions appropriate to our country as it exists today, not the ones we built to address our nationhood as it once was. That movement might end with a new party institution replacing one of our failing major parties, or it might simply take one over and replace its coalition and ideals. In either case, a new party rises to replace one of those now unable to serve.

Any new party movements in Malta can only work if they are built around certain rules.

All political orders age. Plato and Aristotle knew it, and anyone with a modicum of common sense knows it. There is no such thing as a perfect and unchanging political order, and there never has been one. In moments of crisis, we create political coalitions to debate and solve the greatest problem of the moment. These coalitions became the two major parties of an era, the PN and MLP, in what we call a party system. Once formed, those parties remained in place for years, conducting a great debate until the big problems of their era were ultimately resolved, transcended, or faded away. At which point, Maltese politics is now in decline, the government is stagnating, and corruption has taken over the whole system. Eventually, that debased system is bound to collapse.

Up until some time ago, it was impossible to convince half of Malta to join a new endeavour around a new vision during times when they were already mostly content with the system as it exists. That is not the sort of moment we live in now.

When a system built for the problems of a different time and place is no longer capable of solving problems or translating people’s interests into action, it is not just possible to convince enough people to walk away; it is inevitable that they will. In these sorts of moments, new parties are more than possible; they are necessary and unavoidable. That is where we are today.

The first rule for building a new party is that it cannot be a futile attempt to recreate a party that is already dead. A new party has to break with orthodoxy and think fresh. It must actually be new.

The second rule for building a new political party is to stop thinking about policies and start thinking about solving our era’s crisis. When ageing political professionals thought about forming a new party, they immediately wanted to know what policy agenda the party would support and the demographic groups it could attract. That is backwards.

The third rule for building a new party is that it has to have a positive message about the future. What is beyond dispute, then, is that opposition is not enough. A new party must be positive, forward-thinking, and able to spark fresh solutions.

The fourth rule for building a new party is that you actually have to build one from the bottom up, not just run one campaign.

The final rule for building a new party is that you have to create new ideas from scratch. You cannot just cobble together ideas from a prior era. Continuity with a noble tradition can be an asset, but it is not enough. You have to think and build anew.

This is what today’s apathetic electorate expects.