Editorial

This is a testing time for the Malta Labour Party. It is not just that it has to elect a new leader to take over from Alfred Sant but, equally important, it has to make a thorough self-assessment to see why it has been unable to make it to government for so long. This should go beyond the normal post-election analysis. Three successive election defeats call for a sober exercise that ought to go deeper into the heart of the problems. The party may have won back those whom it lost in 2003 over the EU membership issue but it does not seem to have shown itself credible enough to win new support.

Many held it was the party leader that made Labour unelectable. Dr Sant may well have contributed to Labour's defeats but it would surely be unfair to put the blame squarely on him alone. Incidentally, were there other resignations apart from his?

One running argument is that the party had not reformed itself or that it did not do so well enough to make itself appealing to new voters. This is a point the party would have to analyse in great depth.

To his credit, Dr Sant had managed to root out the violent elements from its ranks, a matter that had contributed a great deal towards its political limbo.

Maybe its past image of an aggressive and confrontational party still lingers on in the minds and hearts of all those who lived under socialist administrations.

But the new generation has no idea of the kind of tension that gripped the island in those years and, anyway, few of the young of today may be interested in those times.

Clearly, therefore, the party has to see how it can make itself appealing to the younger generation, including, of course, the thousands of University students, who, as shown by their reaction at the political activity held on campus before the election, are not likely to accept any political rhetoric and mediocrity. The young do not take no for an answer and, rightly so, expect straight answers and clear thinking.

Five years from now these young people would have become more politically mature and there will be yet more young people who would be voting for the first time.

Will the MLP be smart enough to revamp itself to an extent that would also make it more appealing to them? By that time, the issue over EU membership would have receded further into the background. If, over the next five years, the party truly rehabilitates itself, as it were, over the EU and contributes its share towards the island's effort to make a success of membership, as it had promised to do when it reversed its policy after the 2003 general election, then perhaps more people would start looking at the party differently. But the party would need to be absolutely genuine on this; there should be no ifs and buts in its statements and it would have to show consistency in what it says all the time.

Of course, it would take more than this for the party to make the kind of breakthrough it so badly needs and which has been proving so elusive for so many years. First of all, it badly needs to remove the image it has of a party that is constantly on the warpath. Greater attention would have to be given to its policies to ensure that they are workable and the right ones for Malta.

Above all, it needs to have a positive outlook. Just as the Nationalist Party will now be expected to seek greater consensus in governing, Labour will be keenly watched for the way it behaves in Parliament over the next five years. It is its MPs' performance in Parliament that will first indicate if the party wants to reform itself or not. Its future is in its own hands.