A number of welcome political reforms have been proposed in this electoral campaign. The Nationalist Party is proposing an amendment to the country’s constitutional clause on neutrality to reflect the post-Cold War realities.
This is certainly needed. The world has changed, there are no longer two superpowers and non-alignment went away with our European Union membership.
Labour too is proposing changes to Malta’s neutrality, although the wording in its electoral manifesto suggests it has more of an ideological affinity to neutrality than the PN.
Hopefully, after the election the two parties will come to an agreement which takes into consideration today’s geo-political realities as well as our commitments as an EU member state.
Both parties have also pledged to allow Maltese citizens living abroad, and who are eligible to vote, the right to vote at Maltese embassies.
The PN has long advocated this, and Labour has only now agreed to it, but is nevertheless welcome. Until now Maltese governments have had to resort to the ridiculous – and expensive – practice of subsidising Air Malta flights for Maltese citizens to fly over to Malta to vote. The sooner Malta joins the modern world and allows voting at its embassies, or even postal ballots, the better.
The Labour Party has said it will enact a Whistleblower Act should it be elected and it will legislate to remove time barring from political corruption cases. These are both positive suggestions and the PN has vowed to do the same should it win the election, even though these proposals are absent from the Nationalist Party’s electoral programme.
The exact wording of any future Bill aimed at establishing a Whistleblower Act will of course have to be properly scrutinised but it should be an important step in combating corruption.
A law on party financing in the next legislature is a matter of great urgency. The two main political parties have failed, over the last 20 years, to agree on any form of regulation over how they are funded, making Malta the only European country not to regulate its party financing.
This is an unacceptable situation and leads to suspicion among voters of excessive influence by (unnamed) big donors over the parties. Anġlu Farrugia’s recent interview in The Sunday Times, when he alleged that big contractors were too close to Labour, is a case in point.
A party financing law has always been championed by Alternattiva Demokratika, to its credit, and now both main parties say they want to regulate party financing, although only the PL has included this in its electoral manifesto. Whoever wins the next election, however, should make it a top priority.
Labour has pledged to reform the Broadcasting Authority, which if properly implemented can be a step in the right direction. The political parties need to have less of a hold on the BA, and ways must be found to regulate the television stations owned by the political parties, which make a mockery of the country’s constitutional requirement of impartiality in broadcasting.
The Nationalist Party has promised to introduce a constitutional clause that prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation, which is certainly a positive step aimed at a fairer society.
No party has so far officially stated its position on President George Abela’s proposal for Malta to have only two national holidays, namely Independence Day and Republic Day, which is certainly worth implementing.
Neither have the parties spelt out their plans for the reform of Parliament, which is long overdue. It’s not too late, however, as there are still three weeks to go until polling day.