Mark Anthony Sammut, PN candidate and local councillor

Photo: Pierre Sammut/DOI

The new leader of the Opposition was basically an unknown private individual until last June, known only in football circles as Birkirkara’s Football Club president, and in legal circles as a successful lawyer.

This is a gamble which till now seems to be bearing fruit. Delia has re-energised most of the party’s disillusioned supporters and reignited the enthusiasm which looked close to being extinguished after last June’s unexpected heavy defeat at the polls. His encounters with people speak for themselves: he is charismatic and easy to connect with. He is able to explain the current institutional issues both in legal terms and in common speak which is easily understandable by the non-technical crowds. And for those who get to know him and his family, the values that drive them are easily.

He might need to polish up his delivery in Parliament and his debating skills, but those are areas where he will improve while growing in his role.

I have now met him on more than one occasion, and was impressed by his ability to grasp issues quickly. That is fundamental, especially if he really wants to put into practice the bottom-up approach he spoke about during his leadership campaign. He needs to be able to understand the different viewpoints on each policy issue brought before the party’s executive committee by its sectional committees’ representatives, youths, elderly, women, workers, professionals, employers and people from all walks of life, and weigh the best compromises in order to decide on the way forward.

Caruana Galizia’s murder is not about a lone crime without context

Delia vowed to be positive, to lead a forward-looking Opposition. That’s what his “new way” is all about. And he started doing just that with his initial reactions to next year’s budget. By calling a spade a spade, giving credit where credit’s due, but also highlighting what the budget lacked as is the Opposition’s duty to do.

And the most crucial thing it lacks is a proper long-term plan for the country’s most crippling issues: traffic, infrastructure, education, pensions, precarious work, and poverty. And a long-term vision to create new economic sectors which improve the quality of our jobs. Our economic growth cannot keep relying solely on an increase in the working population. There’s a limit to how sustainable this can be in social, infrastructural, environmental and spatial aspects. At some point, our growth needs to rely on increases in salaries brought by new better-paying industries.

That’s why his “new way” went a step further than simply highlighting what’s missing and presenting constructive criticism. The Opposition has also extended its hand to help and contribute in a long-term plan which both parties can agree to and which will see beyond the legislature’s five-year span.

Moreover, he is adamant to do his part to heal the country’s big partisan divide, which has this week gone full circle to where it was 30 years ago with yet another political murder. Daphne Caruana Galizia’s murder is not about a lone crime without context. It is about how the institutions were destroyed and how corruption and criminality were normalised over these four years.

With every failure by the Police Force to act, every failure by the Attorney General to prosecute, the government protected and promoted criminals rather than sought to take action. That is why notwithstanding Delia’s pledge to try to be as positive as he can, you cannot be positive in the face of murder. You have to be assertive and call crime by its name. There is no way people can now have their faith in the institutions restored unless the Prime Minister, the police minister, the Commissioner of Police and the Attorney General assume responsibility for the climate they have created and resign their roles.

If he’s given the opportunity to work, I believe he might really succeed in reuniting the party after this summer’s bitter campaign, move it forward under one common cause, and go on to reunite the country and rebuild its democratic institutions.

The Labour Party failed to send in their contribution in time for publication.

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