It takes courage for Labour leader Joseph Muscat, now also Leader of the Opposition, to start proclaiming to the four winds that the government has a problem of credibility. It may be true that many, if not most, would not exactly be ecstatic if the government does not honour its promise to cut income tax in the budget for next year and that a newspaper survey recently showed that Dr Muscat had overtaken Nationalist Party leader Lawrence Gonzi in trust rating but it is a bit rich for Dr Muscat to start talking about the government losing credibility so soon after his party lost the third consecutive general election, plus a referendum, and when he has been in his party's hot seat for just over 100 days.
If Dr Muscat wants to make inroads into the Nationalist camp, he would need to measure his words more carefully than he is prone to do at times. When, in an interview he gave to The Sunday Times, he brought up what he called the government's "big problem of credibility", he must have thought that the people in general have a big problem, too: that of having a short memory. But he is quite mistaken on this score for it is yet hard for the electorate to forget his party's disastrous policy on European Union membership. It was that, more than anything else, that dragged the party down and made it lose credibility in the eyes of the electorate, including many Labour supporters.
Of course, Labour would not want to be reminded of this and for good reason, too, for this was not a transient matter but a major policy issue that affected the whole island as a state. Its no to Europe stand is far too recent to be completely rubbed off the people's mental slate, which is why the new leader ought to tread carefully when he speaks about credibility. The sins Dr Muscat is apportioning to the government pale into insignificance compared to the MLP's on Malta's EU membership. Dr Muscat, now so enthusiastic about his experience in the European Parliament, was one of the Labour people who campaigned against membership.
When this point was raised in the interview he gave to The Sunday Times, he fended off the question saying he had not been alone in this and that there were others like him who, today, were very pro-Europe. He also admitted, with hindsight, that the yes vote in the referendum had won. Good for him to admit to all this. Clearly, the party is anxious to convince the people that they have now become staunchly pro-Europe.
In Dr Muscat's view, it is not just the government that has a problem of credibility, but Dr Gonzi, "personally", too. He said: "Look what is happening with the shipyards or on the surcharge, for example".
Dr Muscat is playing to the gallery here, for he knows only too well that in the case of the dockyard, for example, the seven-year reform plan has not worked. As to the surcharge, fuel had already been heavily subsidised before the price of crude began to rise sky-high.
True, political parties are bound to be over-generous when they come to making promises at general elections, only to find when they are in power that they are unable to honour them in full or at the time the people expect. At the end of the day, however, what ought to count most is responsible governance.