A vote for my sons' future

Vincent Piccinino clearly does not read the newspapers, but only writes to them. That would be why he made the risible comment in his letter (February 9) that this government has "reduced public finances to the sorry state they are in today".

You can criticise this government about any number of issues, from bird-hunting to divorce, and I do all the time in my job as a newspaper columnist, but you certainly can't fault it on public finances and the economy. The deficit has been slashed right down to its present 1.6 per cent - a phenomenal achievement that leaves Alfred Sant with no ħofra to shout about, though Mr Piccinino is still repeating the battle cry of 1996.

Malta has been permitted to join the eurozone ahead of other countries that have been member states for years longer than we have. Perhaps Mr Piccinino labours under the delusion that it was simply a matter of deciding to switch currencies?

Malta is nearing full employment, which means that there are now more jobs than people to fill them. Foreign direct investment is pouring into the country in the hundreds of millions. New growth areas are booming. Anybody who wants to carry on training or studying can do so, with the result that the children of labourers, who would themselves have been labourers a generation ago, are now working in highly specialised sectors and earning the kind of money their parents could never aspire to.

Young people have amazing prospects (and so do the not-so-young). They have a whole world of opportunity before them. That is why I will vote for the Nationalist Party again and hope that Lawrence Gonzi is returned as prime minister. He and his predecessor have given my sons and their generation the opportunities for a life that I and my ill-served contemporaries could only dream of in vain.

Issues like divorce, bird-hunting and the car park in the backyard pale into insignificance next to my desire to safeguard the future of my sons and all those like them, who are just starting out in life. When I hold that ballot-paper in my hand, you can rest assured that I won't be thinking of bird-shooting, or divorce, or a car park, or any one of a number of nuisance-problems that are part of everyday life for people everywhere. I'll be thinking of young people, and how very much I want them to surge ahead unhindered by chaos, uncertainty or weird policies for once - the first generation of young Maltese people to do so.

I want to shout out to them: Go ahead, spread your wings and fly. You're so very, very lucky. I never thought I'd be sitting here and writing this, but thank you, Eddie Fenech Adami and Dr Gonzi, for working so hard to make sure that this generation of young people is blessed in a way that no other generation in Maltese history has ever been. Thank you for making sure that my sons got the kind of start in life that I, my sisters and my friends never had. Thank you for coming forward to fight those tough battles against the politics of Dom Mintoff, Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici and Alfred Sant. Thank you for persisting in the hard road to EU membership. Thank you for having the vision that pulled Malta out of the wreckage of the 1980s into what it is today. Thank you for continuing to withstand the unreformed Labour Party, and for standing between us and the danger that party presents to the Maltese economy.

As the very grateful mother of three young men, if for no other reason, Dr Gonzi's party has my vote, just as Dr Fenech Adami's had before, when they were children. There is no chance that I will vote in any way that will prejudice the current momentum of economic growth, because to do so would be to work against the interests of those closest to my heart. I will not vote AD because a damaged and weakened Nationalist Party leaves Labour unopposed.

I will never vote Labour because it continues to shelter and put forward the very people who damaged my youth, including Dr Sant, who was president of the party in the early 1980s when most of the damage was being done. I will vote for the Nationalist Party because with Dr Gonzi as Prime Minister, my sons are safe for another five years, and I like what he has done in the areas that count for most.