The government has backed itself into quite a corner with its pre-electoral pledge to relocate Valletta’s open air market, known in Maltese as Il-Monti.

Before the last election, both the Labour and the Nationalist parties had promised to move the market from Merchants Street to Ordinance Street. Both the hawkers and the owners of shops located around the back of the President’s Palace, where the market stalls are clustered, were pleased.

A problem, however, lay in the fact that there are too many stalls to be accommodated in the part of Ordinance Street that lies across Republic Street from Parliament. That would have meant installing some of them between the theatre ruins and the Renzo Piano building on the other side. That, predictably, provoked an outcry from those sensitive to the need to retain the harmony and integrity of the great architect’s work. The objectors eventually won the day, with a little bit of help from those who raised security concerns and hawkers who had turned down what they deemed a paltry financial offer to withdraw from the market and enable the government to place the rest away from the Parliament.

The government eventually decided the move would not be a wise one. There the matter rested for several months, until this newspaper broke the news late last month that an agreement had virtually been reached to move the hawkers to the upper end of Merchants Street.

Merchants Street is arguably a smart and elegant road in the capital, replete with newly-refurbished shops and eateries that attract a good custom, including by tourists. The businesses there, many of which have invested hundreds of thousands of euros in their outlets, are outraged at the planned move and understandably too. They say they stand to lose out quite badly if the hawkers’ stalls are plonked right in front of their shops. This would not only restrict physical access but damage the image of the street. They have filed an application for a court injunction, which is awaiting a decision.

For a second time, the government appears to be reconsidering, denying the move was a done deal and saying no decision will be taken until the new year. Of course, the business community at the lower end of Merchants Street, who had looked forward to the stalls being cleared out, must now be worried.

Meanwhile, the Sunday market hawkers, who had been relegated to an open space near the Park and Ride facility outside Floriana when the bus terminus moved into its former territory just outside the city bastions, are now reminding the government that their relocation was meant to have been temporary. They want to move back to Valletta, somewhere.

It’s a fine mess that the government has created. It’s what comes with making unsustainable pledges primarily with votes in mind and without properly thinking through the ramifications.

It’s a recipe for U-turns, upsetting a lot of people and generally providing proof of incompetence.

The PN is hardly blameless in this regard. Its past pledges to the Armier boathouse owners are coming back to haunt it: the owners’ association is calling into question Simon Busuttil’s offer to the Prime Minister to agree on tackling the decades-old illegalities once and for all.

Politics can be a cynical business, demonstrated loudly and clearly in cases like this. In the rising clamour to restore trust in politics, one of the things the two parties can do is to stop toying with voters.

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