Labour was able to break the “hegemony” of the PN years by entering into its territory and showing it was capable of generating wealth, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat told supporters on Sunday.
Addressing a political activity in Victoria, Dr Muscat said the present government had managed to change the impression that Labour was only capable of distributing wealth, rather than generating it.
Wealth generation used to be the PN’s strength he said, but the current government had changed this.
In the 1980s, Dr Muscat continued, the PN had entered into classic Labour territory by focusing on social issues.
This had led to a PN “hegemony” for many years, he said.
Labour was only able to break this model by entering into what was traditionally seen as PN territory, he said, namely wealth creation.
People had said Labour would not work, yet they had been proven wrong, the Prime Minister said.
Dr Muscat said Labour was now viewed as the automatic choice for both wealth creation and distribution.
He said the PN has “unfortunately” lost both these abilities, which were vital for governing a country.
Dr Muscat promised that the Labour movement would continue being a driving force for change.
The Prime Minister said the first five years of a Labour government had been just the initial part of a bigger project.
He said this period would be a historic one for Malta, where the Labour government would do what previous PN ones had shied away from doing.
During the past nine months alone, the government had introduced two stratospheric reforms, by offering full marriage equality and the right for all 16 year olds to vote in general elections, Dr Muscat said.
The Prime Minister said now was the time to push through these changes, while the economy was going strong.
He said the government would continue pushing for a new constitution, more rights for minorities and managing migration.
Now that these two dimensions were firmly in place, the government could continue with the next steps to make Malta a modern country, Dr Muscat said.