Malta’s political environment is becoming more toxic – and it’s a toxicity which is seeping into the actions of some of the public.

This past week we’ve seen three instances of threats being made against politicians or somehow related to politics, and rumours of further threats made against Karl Gouder, who passed away on Tuesday morning.

On Sunday, it emerged that a man had left a threatening note and a bag of drugs on the doorstep of the home of European Commissioner Helena Dalli.  "Next time I will be prepared with something for your children,” the note read.

However while this emerged last Sunday, the note itself was placed on her doorstep on 31 July – over a month prior.  A police report was filed, yet the family were told that there was no update.  Now, a couple of days after the story made the headlines, an arrest has been made.

There are other issues in the locality of Birkirkara – where there is a tense situation over the mayorship of the locality. Currently, the locality is run by a PN mayor – notary and NET TV journalist Desirei Grech – but only because an agreement failed to be reached between the deadlocked council on who would lead the locality.

Her three-month term is up soon, and she is expecting to be replaced by a Labour Party mayor, who would have had to strike an agreement with independent councillor and their own ex-councillor Kaylocke Buhagiar to attain the mayorship.

The local council building itself was subject to a bomb threat, and Grech last week said that she will be taking legal steps after she herself had received several threats and harassment which was only increasing.

The current minority leader Yana Borg Debono Grech – the latest PL politician from the Debono Grech dynasty – a few days later then reported that two workers assigned to the local council had themselves been intimidated and threatened, and had filed a report with the police.

The PN mayor replied by condemning the threats but saying that she and other workers had been facing issues themselves, and that since she had been appointed mayor, some workers had been purposely trying to interfere in the council’s work.  She even reported that one worker had shouted at her that same day, while others within the council were not cooperating and mistreating her.

Beyond all of this in the last couple of days many have read or heard about rumours that Karl Gouder, the former PN MP who tragically passed away at the age of 45 on Tuesday, was subject to threats after he announced that he would be contesting to be the next PN Secretary General.

These are, at the moment, just rumours, but if they are true then it is yet another shocking low that the illness that is political tribalism has driven people in this country to. There can be no excuse for making threats.

The words national unity are used a lot in the public discourse, but the message doesn’t seem to be getting through. At best, the situation doesn’t appear to be getting any better – at worst, it’s getting worse as every week passes.

We need to have the collective maturity to move towards a political environment which is not characterised by divisiveness.  It’s perfectly fine and completely natural to disagree – both on a political level and even on a personal level – but these disagreements can never devolve into threats because it’s a slippery slope from there.