Inside the ballot booth on Saturday we vote alone, alone with our conscience. It will be a moment of truth, in the literal sense. One is usually truthful to oneself and should vote accordingly by applying a judgement based on truth, conscience and principle. Truth has been the first casualty of the past Labour administration. It was replaced by spin. Principles and values were next to go.

Until a few weeks ago, a Labour electoral victory was a taken. The rumblings of corruption had been around for over a year. The secret Panama companies of the Prime Minister’s closest aides had come as a shock but people learned to live with them and Joseph Muscat managed to stand aloof. But something went wrong when allegations emerged that the third Panama company, Egrant, belonged to the Prime Minister’s wife and that evidence of this was inside a safe at Pilatus Bank. The whole façade began to crack.

Dr Muscat vehemently denies the story and has staked his political future on the outcome of a magisterial inquiry. He handled it terribly. An eleventh hour decision to bring in a magistrate to investigate the damning allegation was botched by a slow police response and a late-night visit by the bank’s chairman who was filmed leaving Pilatus carrying what looked like loaded bags. It came across as a cover-up, whatever the truth may be.

Dr Muscat decided to go to the polls, within the shortest time possible. He should have never done that. If he is as confident as he sounds that truth will out and he will emerge clean from the inquiry, he should have stepped aside until it was completed and then faced the electorate. He did not and will instead run for an election with the sword of Damocles over his head and over the country.

It appears he had expected the magistrate to complete his inquiry in time for the election. That may have been his strategy, although the true reason why he went to the polls a year early is still unclear. He said the magistrate would now have to carry the responsibility should he lose the election and later receive a clean certificate.

Dr Muscat even went as far as to warn of a constitutional crisis should he be proven innocent, arguing that the new government would have been elected on a lie. That is where he is also immensely wrong. The election is not about him, or about Egrant, or so much about electoral programmes. It is about good governance, his governance. It is about principle.

Much of what followed the announcement of the election date has shaken the country. The Opposition has come up with more allegations of corruption, leading to the opening of two further inquiries. Suddenly, everything was at stake: the financial services, the gaming industry, the IT sector, and, yes, the rental market.

Labour has had its successes in government, not least in the economic sector but also in areas such as civil rights and family policies. All this, however, came against a backdrop of initiatives that had never appeared in their electoral manifesto, like the sale of Maltese passports, of hospitals and a power station. Secrecy became the key to most Labour initiatives. Political patronage and numerous positions of trust wiped away much of what remained in the once tantalising Tagħna Lkoll manifesto.

The Nationalist Party in Opposition, with the new Democratic Party in coalition, have their work cut out for them should they win the election. They must try to bring back some credibility to the country before it faces another onslaught on its financial sector. They have to win back public confidence in the country’s institutions, now terribly dented by inaction and ineffectiveness. They will need to wipe out the corrupt mentality that anything goes, that everything can be arranged, that there is always a way around things.

It is a very tall order as it involves not just an institutional change but a mentality change.

Dr Muscat says he has gained the experience to run the country better than he has done so far. It does not show. He does not appear to have learnt anything or done anything to undo his failings and to show that the institutional and moral meltdown in this country will not continue should he be re-elected.

He does not deserve a second chance as the risk would be too big and the price too high to pay.

The Opposition leader has come a long way these last four years and, over the last weeks, has shown his mettle. He is resilient, he stands for values and his whole political programme is built around that. There is a long, hard road ahead of him should he win.

He promises change, a change for the better through good governance, transparency, accountability and meritocracy – very much as Labour did in 2013.

This election is one based on principle, on values and morality.

Inside the ballot booth, voters will be alone with their conscience. They have to be truthful to themselves and to the country.