Nationalist Party leader Simon Busuttil has set for himself a long and hard agenda: to change the course of politics in Malta. His first target is clientelism.

Dr Busuttil wants to put a stop to political patronage through the creation of a ministry for citizens’ rights. He doesn’t want people begging the government for what is already theirs. He doesn’t want a Big Brother State dishing out indulgences in return for political loyalty. Instead, he plans a ministry that would empower citizens to demand what is theirs without having to feel grateful to anyone. It is a tall order.

For this idea to succeed at all, he will need to achieve two things. First, he must bring about a radical shift in people’s mentality by eradicating that submissive, colonial mindset that successive governments have exploited since independence. Secondly, he will have to ensure a public sector that focuses on clients and not its political masters. Otherwise, the ministry for citizens’ rights, instead of being a watchdog and facilitator, will only serve to institutionalise patronage to compensate for public sector failures.

It is an ambitious plan and, given the political realities, very hard to sell as well.

It has been standard practice for parties in Opposition to promise to remedy injustices presumably meted out by the government of the day on grounds of political discrimination. The PN is no different and, today, has an office to receive such complaints that it would attend to once it returns to office. That is not a very good start because there already exists an institution to remedy injustices: the Office of the Ombudsman.

The Labour Party in Opposition too had accumulated a list of ‘injustices’. Soon after it came into office, it set up so-called ‘grievances units’ in several ministries to address the complaints of public sector workers claiming to have suffered an injustice during the previous seven years.

Members of the Armed Forces of Malta were even regaled with an injustices board all for themselves with the result that several retired officers have been given backdated promotions that are costing the country coffers thousands of euros in arrears and salary as well as pension differences.

The setting up of these boards had prompted the Ombudsman, to whom such cases should have been referred to, to tell the government that the decisions by his Office were final according to law.

Dr Busuttil’s proposed ministry for citizens’ rights must not repeat any of these mistakes and at all cost avoid being turned into a complaints ministry to which ministers and MPs would refer their constituents. That would defeat the whole purpose of the proposed entity and simply perpetuate the very clientelism it is meant to combat. A more appropriate title for the ministry would be ministry for citizen empowerment.

This ambitious radical change in the “course of Maltese politics” will demand of the PN a continued and persistent campaign, starting now from the Opposition, to raise public awareness that rights and our freedoms emanate from the Constitution and are not the result of government tolerance or benevolence. Only awareness of one’s rights will ever break the spell of clientelism.

Dr Busuttil cannot carry out this project of “good governance” alone. He needs to be flanked by like-minded politicians who, unfortunately, often cannot be found from among his more experienced MPs.

He will therefore need the help of the electorate to select MPs that embrace this new way of thinking. People may feel like beggars now but they still have a choice.

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