Presumptuous

The June 12 elections for the European Parliament demolished a presumption that underpinned PN administrations in recent years, namely that they enjoy some divine right to govern badly. This had helped to develop within their operating style a not so smooth arrogance, which remained undimmed by the very poor performance on the job of ministries and departments.

According to the PN's self-proclaimed standards, the June 12 election was theirs to win outright. Indeed, other political formations, chief of which Labour, hardly had the right to contest such elections since they had opposed EU membership.

PN politicians and fellow travellers in the media stated that Labour's acceptance of the people's verdict in the 2003 elections was not evidence of democracy at work but a U-turn that had no valid meaning. Well, people judged otherwise. The collapse of the PN's vote demonstrated that many citizens are fed up with being treated like they were fools or morons by the powers-that-be.

Up to the end of the campaign, indeed still as of now, the government persists in not telling the truth. Or rather it only admits to that part of the truth which it finds palatable.

So, we get versions of the current unemployment situation that are based on the massaged figures issued by the Employment and Training Corporation. Unemployment is there, we were told during this last campaign, because Maltese people no longer want to work; the jobs exist; they are not taken up.

So, we get stories about prices that feature those prices which are on the down. Meanwhile, the stories ignore completely the existing and coming rises in such essential items as chilled beef, sugar and medicines.

The irony has been that, while in the European Parliament campaign the PN boasted about how credible its candidates were on "European" issues, their overall credibility was draining away, by the seconds, in the minds of ordinary people. The latter were relating what they saw and heard around them, to the situation in which they were placed. The Prime Minister and other PN speakers persisted in deploying the arguments featured in government press releases. They turned people off.

Indeed, the Prime Minister derided the focus on "local issues" which had emerged during the campaign. We are contesting European elections, he claimed. As if, all over Europe, the national campaigns were not being fought on "local" issues...

Labour throughout made sure to retain direct contact with the people and to address their concerns. This process started well before the formal campaign was launched and with reason. We realised how worried many people were with the emerging problems in the economic and social spheres. They were fed up with being purposely kept misinformed and misdirected. They were fed up with government bungling.

The awareness spread that, despite the PN's boasting about how they had managed to get Malta into the EU, the country was left dismally unprepared for the effects of entry. Not only were the administrative backups botched in many cases, but the economic and social effects which had been forecast turned out either to have been tinged with too much optimism or purposely distorted towards the positive.

One area where this became most obvious was in a sector that traditionally votes for the PN - the farming community. They had been promised help and safeguards to counter the flood of cheap fresh vegetables expected to come with membership, from Sicily. The remark made by farmers I met in the north of Malta - "we have been betrayed" - still rings in my ears.

While the government propaganda machine was touting the success achieved this year in exporting potatoes, farmers who grow spring vegetables, but not potatoes, took a hammering as imports flooded in from Sicily and North Africa. When they turned to the government for the help and the safeguards they had been promised, their problems were simply ignored.

For the past months, the PN administration has operated inside a vicious loop that feeds from arrogance to muddle and back to arrogance. People are not amused. Admittedly, last year, the PN managed to harness the majority feeling for EU membership to stay ahead politically. But it is now reaping the harvest of disillusionment that its "economical" statements about the truth has generated.

On Labour's part, we will continue to put the emphasis on social issues, top of which unemployment and social welfare. The fundamental problems facing our society arise from the failure of the government in past years to spark new investment that gives rise to productive jobs. Too much bureaucracy, a lethargic approach to getting things done, quangos that create more problems than they were meant to solve - all these, and more, get in the way of creative moves to make things happen.

This cannot be allowed to go on for much longer as it is sapping the flexibility and adaptability of our society. It is not enough to bemoan loss of competitiveness if nothing is done urgently to correct the situation.

The PN's assumption that it has some divine right to go on governing badly is not only presumptuous. It has now become intolerable and dangerous to the community as a whole.