When, some time ago, The Times commented on a poll carried out for its sister newspaper finding that new voters were more inclined to vote Nationalist than Labour, some quickly took the newspaper to task, arguing that two possible reasons for this was that young people were immature and that they were more interested in hedonistic pleasures.
Not even the Labour Party would agree with such sweeping conclusions – especially as a poll published by The Sunday Times yesterday shows that the PL has more than made up lost ground in that area – but a study on how youths see themselves today shows how wrong these people were in their perception of the young.
According to the new study by Aġenzija Żgħażagħ and Żgħażagħ Ħaddiema Nsara, both the Nationalists and Labour have reason to worry about how young people see politicians today.
To people aged between 13 and 30, politicians are the least trusted category, a finding that would most probably also reflect the feelings of people in most of the other categories. Disenchantment with politicians and politics has grown practically everywhere but, in particular, in countries whose governments were unable to get to grips with their countries’ economic problems.
Malta has not had the kind of problems these countries have experienced. Unemployment, for instance, is far lower than that being experienced by a string of EU countries.
The deficit in public finance is down and, despite the impact on the local economy of the economic difficulties abroad, the island is still expected to register economic growth this year. It will be small but, in the face of the hard economic scenario abroad, it is nonetheless no mean feat.
Disenchantment with local politicians is over the way they do politics generally. The shenanigans of some, and of Franco Debono in particular, has done considerable harm to the image of politicians.
Running sharply against what President Emeritus Eddie Fenech Adami says that a politician’s duty is to serve, Dr Debono is constantly acting in a way that makes many think of him as being only interested in serving himself.
And Labour, which has been eager to trip up the government over anything that can possibly shorten the time between now and the holding of an election, has all too often hitched up to his bandwagon.
In reality, though, there is not much time left for an election to be held within the time officially laid down and, therefore, all the efforts being made by Dr Debono and Labour to shorten the life of the government are quite pointless.
In the light of all this, is it any wonder that politicians are the least trusted among the young? Though this is not to say that the young are not interested in political issues. They are. They are only not interested in partisan politics.
Will the young be as convinced as their elders in the promises the parties make? Unlikely. But contrary to popular perception, not all of them are solely interested in partying. In fact, no fewer than 80 per cent said studying and work was their prime motivation.
Will the parties read the signs of the times and adjust their behaviour, making their talk more attractive and persuasive to them?
The likelihood is that, in the frenetic drive to win votes, they are bound to fall in the same trap that they have been falling into in many elections past. This will come at a cost, unless they wake up to new realities.