The long electoral campaign is over, Malta has voted and the result will be known today. We hope the winning party will be humble in victory and the losing party gracious in defeat.
We also hope the supporters celebrating their party’s victory will do so in full respect of their counterparts on the defeated side.
It is a shame that the past two days have been marred by an issue we have been flagging for years, which is the outdated nature of our law on days of reflection before polling day which bans all political comment. This descended into farce with both sides pointing fingers as campaigners flouted the law.
The real victims of this were the established media who have been campaigning for change and yet abided by the law. Blame, meanwhile, can only be attributed to one side: the Nationalist Government that ignored all our pleas to amend the law.
Whatever the result today, the vote will once again show that the electorate is divided roughly into two equal blocs.
The first duty of the incoming Prime Minister will be to reach out to the other side and promise to work in the national interest for the benefit of all Maltese.
Malta is too small to be divided as a nation; once the election is over we must now unite, put our differences behind us and get back to business.
The new government will find a full in-tray. There are important issues to be tackled which were ignored in the campaign, there are electoral promises to be fulfilled, the economy will have to be carefully managed so as not to be engulfed by the ongoing crisis in the eurozone, political reforms need to be carried out, a new energy policy will have to be implemented and anti-corruption measures must be introduced.
The economy will be by far the new government’s most important priority. Despite a gloomy international (and eurozone) economic climate over the past five years, the outgoing Nationalist Government managed to keep unemployment low, the deficit under control and economic growth at a reasonable level. This was no mean feat.
The new Administration’s first task will be to get the Budget for 2013 approved by Parliament, which means the House of Representatives should be recalled as soon as possible.
It will also have to identify new areas of potential economic growth, formulate a plan to reduce the country’s high debt level and maintain financial sustainability while implementing the income tax cuts which both major parties agreed to.
Political and constitutional reform should also be given the importance they deserve. The two parties should agree to amend the country’s constitutional clause on neutrality so as to reflect the post-Cold War realities as well as our commitments as an EU member state.
The fight against corruption needs to be intensified. The introduction of a Whistleblower Act and the removal of time-barring from political corruption cases will be positive measures but what is urgently needed is a comprehensive review of the way corruption is tackled. A law on party financing during this legislature is a matter of great urgency.
Energy policy will no doubt feature prominently in the next Parliament. Whether we go for a new power station run on gas, or a gas pipeline or we rely on the energy interconnector to reduce the cost of electricity, the important thing is that every new measure is properly costed, safe, realistic and done within reasonable timeframes.
There are a number of other important policy areas which were virtually ignored in the campaign but nevertheless need to be tackled. Let us not waste any time.