I usually find it hard to agree with Labour Party general secretary Jason Micallef but I agreed with him on a particular point he made in the interview carried in this paper a few days ago. A number of voters who traditionally vote Nationalist are seriously considering staying at home on polling day. It is also the case that there is a widespread perception of a corrupt government.
Hats off to the Labour propaganda machine; it has succeeded, in much the same way as it did prior to the 1996 election, in throwing sufficient quantities of mud in a persistent and systematic manner to make enough of it stick. One only has to recall the shameful way in which Minister Michael Frendo was unjustly hounded by Labour-leaning journalists who concocted a whole "web of corruption" scenario prior to that election.
It is useless trying to hide from the fact that a number of voters perceive the present government as being tainted with corruption. Is this fair? Granted, a number of cases of corruption have come to light over the past months. Granted, the way some political situations were handled by the government left much to be desired. Does this in any way justify the perception built up by Labour however?
Would it be more convenient if we hid from the sad truth? As long as humanity exists there will be corruption. Countries such as China, which deal with cases of corruption by means of summary executions, are still faced with the problem. Would it be better if we reverted back to the good old days under Labour when institutionalised corruption was the order of the day but everyone accepted it as being an unavoidable part of everyday life?
The fact that a number of corrupt officials have been taken to court of late should be taken as proof of the fact that the present government will not tolerate abuse. The way Labour has managed to twist this around to suit its purpose is admirable. The way the government allows itself to be battered without, more often than not, even a feeble attempt at rebutting Labour's Machiavellian attacks is worrying, to say the least.
It would be a pity if the next government were elected not because it has anything to offer when it comes to good governance but simply because the party that garners the majority of votes at the polls was adept at character assassination manoeuvres.
It would be a pity if the next party elected to govern these islands were made up of exactly the same people who tried to keep us out of the EU. Political accountability should not be a buzzword Labour spokesmen use when it suits them.
They should be held politically accountable for the lies, yes, the blatant lies they bandied about in their efforts to dissuade the electorate from voting for EU membership. Alfred Sant had declared that we would only get Lm1.5 million if we joined the EU.
The sum to be made available to us in the coming months is actually €1 billion. Would it be fair and, more to the point, would it make sense to allow a party which is still made up of people who regularly show themselves up as being Euro-sceptics to handle these funds? Would it make sense to have a party at the helm that wants to be a "government for Labourites" (Mr Micallef), wants us to take us back to the "glorious days of the 1970s and 1980s" (deputy leader Michael Falzon) and which has a leader who is stuck in the Old Testament, declaring himself to be in favour of "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth" political system. A leader who still tries to present himself as "new" after 20 years of leading a party from one defeat to another, from one nonsensical stance to another, a leader who was the president of the MLP during the "glorious" 1980s.
Mr Micallef may protest that his words were "manipulated" till he's blue in the face. He claims that the fact that his speech was posted on YouTube by someone he refers to as being "naïve" was a source of embarrassment. But it is there and the message he was trying to convey to the assembled faithful is as clear as the proverbial crystal.
It is always embarrassing when the sheep's clothing you're desperately clinging to slips off to reveal what having a Labour government would truly signify: a throwback to the "good old days" when your right to anything from medical treatment to basic and essential services, from import licences to jobs, from government posts to building plots... even grave sites... depended on your political alignment.
It is risible to see Mr Micallef lamenting about media manipulation and being quoted out of context. The daily news service on Super One TV is basically dependent on manipulation of news items and quotes taken completely out of context.
It's a pity that we're allowing ourselves to be influenced by that kind of "journalism". And, I'm going to be blunt. If there's anyone out there who believes that the EU is going to come charging in to save us if we're stupid enough to allow an unabashedly discriminatory party to win at the polls, they should also seriously reconsider their beliefs regarding the tooth fairy. We will only have ourselves to blame and the EU has better things to do than saving us from ourselves.
Dr Pullicino Orlando is a Nationalist member of Parliament.
www.jeffreypullicinoorlando.com