We really know it is election time when talk resurfaces of grandiose plans for the remnants of the Theatre Royal, City Gate, and now, the latest addition, the Grand Harbour.

One morning, in close proximity of the quinquennial appointment with the electorate, the anxious, fearful politician and his team of merry men devise and engineer a plan that will change the face and topography of one of Malta's most precious assets. This in the hope that this grandiose vision for our Grand Harbour will sufficiently anaesthetise the voter's brain and capacity for intelligence to act in the fateful voting booth on the basis of which the marina will look nicer - the one protruding out of Fort St Elmo's belly in the red-coloured brochure or that with the blue background.

Asphyxiated by the grasp of this anxiety performance, ideas start being excreted from the mouths of the enlightened minds of this band of sycophants who sporadically but punctually exercise the muscle tissue in their tongues, sparing no saliva in the process, especially if the object of the tongue's affections is the politician himself.

We should stick a pontoon into Fort St Elmo and turn it into a cruise liner terminal, one says. The other says: No, fill every existing and visible piece of coastline with marinas. The third wants to get hold of every piece of existing land that can take development and build five-star hotels, turn City Gate into a Disneyland-like, Cinderella's Castle look-a-like. Won't it look nice... having people see the ferries pass beneath them as they cross from the Grand Harbour to Marsamxett?

Then one of those present raises his hand timidly and asks: But should we not try to get a feel for what the people in those areas think and look to enhance what we already have there? Suddenly, the rest erupt into laughter as if there were no tomorrow and begin to doubt his motives threatening to isolate him and banish him to political limbo.

Having been so ceremoniously and thoroughly discussed, "the project" is forwarded to the visionary architects and contractors of the island, whose great merit has been to edify concrete boxes covered in some extravagant coating of blue, orange or pink paint and having made millions of liri in the process. They like it, they want it, they say they'll do it and would even raze Valletta to the ground at no cost if they could build their lasting legacy to architecture, civil and bank account engineering.

Satisfied that the wide consultative process has borne its fruits in a wide and democratic fashion and soon after having won his electoral challenge, the politician approves and executes the grand plan, the project takes off and is completed in record time. A year later in some advert on Al Jazeera, the Prime Minister is seen promoting his country as a tourist attraction and therein lauds the praise of Tropicana, the city he edified instead of an old slum by the name of Valletta.