Editorial

Quite understandably, there has been a strong reaction to an order by the Labour Party's vigilance and disciplinary board disallowing candidates to party leadership posts from giving comments to the media.

The gagging order, lifted in time before the matter developed into another serious self-inflicted blow to the party, was immediately seen by party stalwarts as going diametrically against the kind of party most would want the MLP to become in this day and age. Clearly, the party's vigilance and disciplinary board is the first of the party's structures that seriously needs to be overhauled.

It has been generally refreshing reading the way candidates, and others, have been dissecting not only their party's failure to win the election but also inbuilt shortcomings in the way they have been acting over the years and faults in their policies. The party's performance over the past years and its defeat in the last election are proof enough that its machinery is not working as it should.

Having said this, what is most glaring is that candidates to the post are only raising the party's faults now when they should have done so in the years before the election when they had ample time to work towards bringing about the change they are now so convinced is needed to make their party electable again. Ironically enough, when one leading MLP man, Alfred Mifsud, tried to open the way in this regard by choosing to speak his mind, he earned the vigilance board's displeasure. Could this be the reason why nobody, including those within the leadership triumvirate itself and the administration, would stand up to be counted or to bell the cat when they saw things going awry, as is being admitted now?

Interesting, too, is the range of opinions making the rounds over the procedure used for the election of the new leader, with some forcefully arguing that the choice ought to be entrusted also to registered party members, not just to delegates. There may, of course, be "logistical" problems in taking this line, but surely this could be overcome, especially knowing that the wider the base, the stronger and the more representative of the grassroots the new leader would be. At times it almost feels as if there are forces within that are resisting this.

Rarely had the party been exposed to such an in-depth open analysis as that which is being carried out now. Labour does need an overhaul and a re-assessment of the core values that had inspired its pioneers. More than this, the party badly needs to be catapulted to modern times so that it would appeal to a wider spectrum of today's society. There is deep-rooted concern, which is totally justifiable, that the party is still somewhat old-fashioned in many ways. The world has moved on since the times of Dom Mintoff and Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici. Alfred Sant at first appeared to be steering a new course and he did manage to break away from traditionalist Labour approaches but he stumbled on a number of key issues.

The party carries a heavy baggage. Its past, with its violent phases and economic policies that kept the island backward, not to mention, too, the time when the party governed against the will of the majority of the people, still haunts those who lived the times. Equally disastrous was its anti-European Union membership stance. Erasing a mistake of such proportion from the minds and souls of the people is easier said than done but erased it must be if Labour ever wants to get back to power again.

Many, if not most, in the party agree today that the time has come for the MLP to adopt a different approach to politics, to become more positive and convincing in its arguments rather than sticking to its past aggressive streak that appealed so much to the party grassroots. That time is well and truly over.