Well, let us hope the one that is about to be born shall be just that, a very good year. What can safely be said about the one that is preparing to bow out is that it has been a very strange period. The predictable did happen, though far from to our great joy. The uncertain was clarified, yet without bringing along much certainty: that was predictable too, yet not to such an extent that it did occur. Above all, noisy chickens came home to roost. A riddle? Not if you have recovered from the week's excesses and can now return to chewing thoughtfully.
The predictable related to the economy. With costs inexorably rising and competition relentlessly increasing, the odds were heavy that the manufacturing sector would shed jobs and tourism would see weaker arrivals. And so it came to pass.
As month followed month, the pressure grew without pause and with merciless effect. Visible exports shrank. Factory owners found their marketing efforts outflanked more than ever before by exporters producing in countries with much lower unit costs. Some tried to diversify output, mixing local and cheaper foreign-based items to bring down their average cost, aiming for an extension of life.
Others were forced to give up the ghost, and relocated where labour costs are much cheaper and skills-availability and efficiency are not scarce. The trend had nothing to do with Malta's relationship with the European Union. Factories that closed in the second half of the year, once the issue of membership was decided, would have still done so had the people's choice gone the other way.
The most significant warning of that brutal reality should have sent shivers down the national spine. The major industrial operator, STMicroelectronics, transferred a fifth of its production to its Morocco plant. That clear writing on the wall was not obvious enough to those who should have been peering closely at it. It became blindingly so as the year approached its cheerless end.
The chairman and CEO of STM, Pasquale Pistorio, came to Malta, was fawned upon and fêted, but did not fail to spell out his message. STM wanted to retain its Malta presence. It could only do so if the costs were right. Meaning? Meaning that the company would be putting less in the pay packet of its labour force - emoluments would be cut.
Totally predictable, had anyone been watching, listening and interpreting. Yet no less shocking once the predictable became reality. And that is no means the end, but only the beginning of the unfolding drama in the manufacturing sector. More shocks and pain lie ahead.
In the tourism sector declining bed-night rates and a growing bed-stock predicted a game of scrabble anyone could work out: a number of hoteliers would find it impossible, or at least unfeasible to continue to operate. And so too is it coming to pass. Various three- and four-star hotels are being taken off the market. More will follow.
The predictable impact of both these developments on the jobs market duly began to take place. Unemployment kept creeping up. Vacancies fell. Applications for those that were advertised stood high and came, very often, from over-qualified hopefuls.
That human factor is much more striking and possible to comprehend than the predictable weakness in GDP growth. That was nudged up by private and public consumption - for the latter read government spending, even if you do not go into the tedious saga of the galloping fiscal deficit.
The uncertain element was clear enough from the very dawn of 2003: would a democratic majority of the electorate conclude that Malta should join the EU, once it was given the opportunity to do so?
It came to pass that, yes, it did. It took a referendum to indicate that it would do so, and it took an election to conclude it, at an unnecessary cost to the Labour Party of yet another stint languishing in Opposition.
The election made it certain that Malta would accede to the EU on May 1, 2004. It was a milestone decision. It raised a tidal wave of dramatically altered positions. The Labour Party came round to agreeing that membership, after all, was not a theological issue. It accepted the people's verdict, with the correct premise that it would not thereby become part of any hallelujah chorus, but would be explicit in pointing out what would be going wrong, and adamant in demanding that the benefits of what went right reached the deserving.
Membership, therefore, was no longer a fundamentally divisive issue creating uncertainty. Yet, that uncertainty ended, no certainty was born. Rather the opposite. Having reached a peak of excitement and expectancy, the country very rapidly deflated. Anticipation does tend to be better than realisation.
In this case realisation has not even begun: accession still waits for May Day of the New Year to arrive. But all the pins and needles of anticipation began dropping off almost as soon as the election and the early hip-hip-hoorahs for membership were over.
For the reality was that, though forced to do so by the intransigence of the Labour leadership, the electorate had confirmed the Nationalists in office, since EU membership was made dependent on the election result, many felt it was time for a change, that the Nationalists had run out of steam. The new Nationalist government set about with determination to prove that apprehension well founded.
One gaffe followed another. From landfills to emptied policies, such as in taxation. From widespread political indolence to political aggression on their own colleagues by the parliamentary secretary in the ministry of finance and economic affairs and the minister for information technology and public investments.
From last-minute scrimping on staff and other Christmas parties, to extravagant purchases of ministerial cars, with that (or is it those?) for the PM going on the road alongside the party-scrapping orders in a grotesque show of maladroitness and insensitivity.
On top of the grim economic and financial situation there is also a growing feeling of confusion. The only thing that is certain as this paradoxical year draws to a close is that nobody is certain when, if ever, the country will stop sinking into its deepening rut.
If any other certainty exists it is that the prime minister's post-election euphoric boast that a new spring had dawned has become a sick, bad joke.
All that is taking place to the growing cacophony of the fluttering of chickens coming home to roost. Delusion is rampant. There is sadness that the Labour Party, once it could accept the majority will in favour of membership following electoral defeat, did not position itself to do so if a specific referendum on the issue yielded a Yes vote, and so go give itself the great chance to on to win the right to bring fresh ideas and energy to the administration of a country that direly needs a change of government.
The chickens of that misshapen strategy are not driven away by the fact that the bulk of the Labour team that hatched it has been ditched. The new team, however much it develops, will have to wait until the next election to get the chance to govern. Meanwhile, given the growing delusion with the Nationalists, it would be dumbfounding if Labour did not register good victories at local council as well as MEP elections.
It will still have to wait till the next general election for the chance to govern, at which time it is likely to inherit a mess bigger even than it did in 1996, and would have done had it won this year.
There is anger that the Nationalists misled the electorate so cynically in the run-up to the general election. The problems they thunder about now could not have been unknown to them when they were selling the country the line that things were going swimmingly and that voting for EU membership would trigger the miraculous cure to all the country's ills.
People do not like to be taken for a ride. Many who were joyful in April that Malta would be joining the EU now feel growing resentment that they were taken for fools and were presented with glibness and gloss instead of with the truth.
God forbid that there would ever again be such a strange year. But, do not bet on it.
A better New Year to all readers.