Pre-mid-term resolutions

"He is particularly and positively vociferous on environmental issues and on the need of a better quality of life through improved amenities in his community with a deep sense of justice towards his electors."

This is what Paul Borg Olivier, secretary general of the Nationalist Party, recently said about a PN member of Parliament. What Dr Borg Olivier did not mention is that these characteristics should belong to all politicians who are interested in the resident and the tourist. And those who don't have them (the characteristics, of course) should not be in Parliament, as they are not politicians.

Some non-politicians think they are doing you a favour by answering your mail. (See comment by G. Schembri, The Sunday Times, December 20). Others rush out of their house and then back home as if there is no toilet where they have been. They also rarely take a look at the streets of their locality, ignoring the fact that every area has its touristic attractions.

The year 2010 brings us closer to 2013 not only mathematically but also politically and electorally.

Some time ago, two politicians from the same party privately argued hotly about voting attitudes. The first said how important it is for a politician - and, indeed, the whole party - to be close to people, to attend popular manifestations, to mix with people and listen to them, especially where aesthetic improvements are concerned.

The second politician tried to ridicule this attitude, saying that six months before an election, people forget everything. Today, this attitude is considered quite naïve and the second politician is preparing his own suicide and oblivion as voters get ready to abandon him.

In 2010, and even more in 2013, people's political attitudes are changing and will continue to change. So, please, Mr second "politician" above, can you go away now and develop your professional career instead of wasting your time and ours?

One typical example of electors' commitment today was the militant, successful action of the Balluta residents' association that managed to sweep away with determination the publicly undesired, touristically harmful plans of developers. This attitude is growing also all around the St Julians area. Voters know very well here that a Paceville mentality to expand and spread is a permanent danger to both residents' harmony and the tourism product.

We all know that it is possible for a grocer or confectioner to have greedy eyes on the pavement in front of their shop. They would gladly turn their shop into a bar with all its unpleasant consequences - to the frustration and consternation of local and visiting residents. Political candidates expecting votes from Sliema, St Julians, St Andrews, Swieqi, Pembroke etc. must express themselves in favour of residents' and tourists' peace, health and locality organisation and act on their words if they don't want their investment in their electoral campaign to be a complete waste of time, effort and money.

One reason for present-day politicians' attraction to centre and centre-left politics is an attempt to appear to be hugging popular ideology while criticising leftist and rightist extremes.

Even conservatism nowadays tries to impress on people that it is really a popular, political structure. The expression Christian Democracy seems to be used less and less as people nowadays opt for political choice free of fundamentalism. A strategic centre and centre-left oriented operation is not always successful. I have noticed a poor example of this type in the sudden jump to a social democratic educational quasi-comprehensive system meant to erase long years of mouldy conservative smugness. Indeed, political orientation does not always readily respond to a flick-of-a-switch movement.

Each political structure is trying, but not always successfully, to shed the suffocating faldetta forced on it by confessional ideologists of the past.

In some cases, this is just a cosmetic exercise and in others a difficult tight-rope walking enterprise attempting to retain all votes possible.

There may be people who have stayed away from politics for years for cowardly, opportunistic reasons and now are prophetically convinced of the political situation closer to election time. Thus, while hugging the same opportunistic attitude, they are coming out of their hiding places and making well-timed writing and speaking noises intended to give the impression they are not Judases but were too busy.

The transparency of this attitude is so clear that, by comparison, hypocrisy is a virtue.

Meanwhile, writers who often attack lovers of natural and cultural heritage (including patriotism) are not only doing a disservice to themselves (and who really cares?) but to the party they are close to - which tries, sometimes unsuccessfully, to send them a clear message that the farther they keep away the better. For, after all, with friends like these, who needs enemies?

Dr Licari teaches psycholinguistics and sociolinguistics.