Labour's recent monolectic excursion into the depths of nuclear biology seems to have made them come up with the battle-cry that the Nationalist Party's DNA is damaged. Well, notwithstanding the many eugenic interpretations that may be given to that, the bad news for Labour is, unfortunately, that the scientific fact shows that everybody's DNA contains a number of latent defects, which is why, in fact, there are so many diseases running around.

Contrary to what many people believe, DNA is not the cellular organism's blueprint but a genetic programme which may vary very slightly from time to time and which instructs the organism as to its present and future plan of development. So our DNA is the programme which our body follows during its regular growth and development.

A political party's DNA would then be analogous to a political party's programme of development. A programme of development for a political party refers to what was done in the past, what is being done now and what is being planned for the future.

I need not waste time on what separates us from the Labour Party as to political philosophy and on the past. The MLP is socialist, our main centre of action is Man, viewed in his (or her) transcendental truth. Man should not be subject to a collectivist political ideology but must be helped to follow his own path to his own fulfilment. Our independence, our rule of law and peace of mind, our EU membership, our economic progress, our joining the Schengen Area and our joining the eurozone are all feathers in the PN's cap and our greatest success is to have persuade the MLP to board our bus on these issues. There, however, remains a wee matter of the future.

The PN's projection for the future has been spelled out in the recently-published electoral programme and clearly defined in the last annual budget. We must have a budget surplus by 2010! This allows one to reduce taxes on a grand scale. We want people to earn more money and pay less taxes. Several tax incentives have been declared, among which the reduction of tax bands from 35 per cent to 25 per cent and from 25 per cent to 15 per cent. We want to improve our manufacturing and services base.

Our programme for the health sector with the opening of the Mater Dei Hospital centre for excellence for secondary health must be followed by improvement for the geriatric and cancer patients and a major overhaul of the primary heath sector.

Education has always been the battle-horse of the PN. The vision which has led more than 70 per cent of our youths to continue studying after leaving school was always assiduously pushed forward by the PN. We need this figure to go up much further even to 85 per cent, not only in the academic field at the University but also in the vocational one at institutes like Mcast.

Our vision for the country is to make Malta a place of excellence in all spheres not least in financial services, information technology and tourism. Usually it takes a number of years for a newly-entered EU member state to recover fully economically after the first shock of joining! After the 1996 election, when Alfred Sant and the very same team contesting on behalf of the MLP now were elected, most of the promises they made were broken within two months and many other unmentioned policies, like the 33 direct taxes, were imposed on us willy-nilly. Malta's EU membership was instantly withdrawn.

With what measure of credibility should we now give over our country to be led by a Eurosceptic party with no experience of government within the EU? Many of Labour's policies in their present electoral programme are simply unworkable within the reality of EU membership. Removing VAT on certain sectors is one of them! The VAT card has already been played by Labour in the past!

On March 9, one of the leaders of the two main political parties will be given the oath of Prime Minister and asked to form a Cabinet of ministers. It is up to us to decide who he will be. Should it be the party with credibility or should it be the one without? One should vote wisely on March 8 as we will all live long with the choice we will shortly make. The people will get the government the people deserve!

Dr Asciak will contest the March 8 election on behalf of the Nationalist Party.