Towards a victory by the people for the people

Even the most fanatical Nationalist Party supporter would have to admit that the lot of the ordinary citizen under the present government has indeed been a hard one. The ordinary man/ woman in the street has found it very hard, during the last four years, to cope with the burdens of heavy taxation and the cost of living.

This is speaking on a general basis because, over and above all this, various sectors of the population have been negatively hit by the policies of the Nationalist government.

The performance of a government must be measured against the yardstick of how far it has succeeded in improving the quality of life of its citizens and in this the Nationalist government has signally failed. Distracted by its total concentration on European Union membership, the government has never addressed the real needs of the people.

It is no exaggeration to say that this is a government cut off from the people, a fact that has even been admitted by the more objective pro-PN opinion makers in various contributions to the print media. It is impossible to improve the lot of the ordinary citizen when the state of the country's finances remains very worrying.

Furthermore, certain decisions taken by the Nationalist government against this background are highly controversial. A case in point is the Lm70 million allocated to the agricultural sector because of the changes necessitated by European Union membership.

This huge sum has to come from local taxpayers' money but does this make any sense, given the poor state of the country's finances? When you are in debt you try to cut down on your expenditure and not add to it.

The government is also cut off from the people in the way it disseminates information on matters of public interest. It is an insult to the people's intelligence to have government exponents continually stating that the economy is in a good state, that prospects for employment for youths are very promising, that great advances have been made in education, etc., when the facts are otherwise.

The people are today educated enough to see through this shallow propaganda. Indeed, the Fenech Adami administration would be more respected if it simply stated the facts. It would be more respected if it stated that we have achieved this and failed to achieve that, that we are progressing in this sector but have made little progress in another sector. That is what the ordinary citizen wants, a critical review of the situation in the country, one that respects his/her intelligence and his/her faculties for critical reflection.

Respect for the people implies respect for the opposition which today probably represents an absolute majority of the Maltese people. To continually publicly state that most of the woes of this country are attributable to the 22 months of the Sant administration will fool no one. The Nationalist government has had four years to address the problems of the country. What has it achieved?

Has the standard of living of the ordinary citizen improved or has the opposite happened? I leave the answers to these questions to the people. The day of reckoning is approaching for the Nationalist government. The sovereign electorate will soon pass judgment on its performance during the last few years.

A Malta Labour Party victory at the next general election will be a victory by the people for the people. The MLP is a political party that has always remained close to the people. Indeed, all its policies are based on the needs of the ordinary citizen. This is far different from the policies of the Nationalist Party which has always used the European Union membership/partnership debate to distract the attention of the people from the sorry state of the country they live in.

Alfred Sant and his team are not infallible, they too have their strengths and weaknesses but nobody can deny that they put the citizen first in all that they do. A new Labour government will not solve the country's problems overnight. It will be the beginning of a long hard road towards building a new Malta.

However, Labour policy dictates that this shall not be at the cost of the ordinary citizen's standard of living, at the cost of the quality of life of the people. Malta Labour Party policy is based on the principle of a government of the people for the people.