Some people were recently amazed that a former staunchly pro-PN public figure, Marisa Micallef, has joined the Labour Party ranks. Indeed, there is nothing really sensational about this and I expect several other former prominent Nationalist Party supporters to do likewise. The reason is that while Joseph Muscat’s Labour Party has become a national, all-inclusive political movement, Lawrence Gonzi’s Nationalist Party has become exactly the opposite, i.e. an exclusive political club where power is vested in a small number of people who create artificial barriers which exclude the vast majority from any real and significant say in all major decisions.

The major strength of the Labour Party today is that its policies are aimed for and appeal to all members of Maltese society, i.e. all social groups. In the now rather remote past, the Labour Party in Malta was sometimes solely identified with manual workers. This was a natural consequence of the state of social development in the Maltese Islands at the time. With the passage of time and the rate of progress through the years, change within the PL itself has resulted in the Labour Party’s modernizing its structures and policies to encompass the needs, desires and goals of all social classes, all Maltese citizens, without the exclusion of anybody.

Putting the national interest before everything else, the PL today welcomes anybody who wants to form part of a growing national movement that is fed up with the hypocrisy of the Nationalists, of a PN Government which preaches one thing and does exactly the opposite. All citizens of goodwill will no longer tolerate the inefficiency and incompetence of the PN Government for which they are always being made to pay the price. Furthermore, it is clear that while Joseph Muscat and his followers are daily coming up with new and creative ideas on how to administer the country and create national wealth, Lawrence Gonzi and his colleagues have simply run out of ideas and seem to be going round in circles without any clear aim and direction while the situation in Malta continues to worsen on a daily basis.

Symptomatic of the way people are losing faith in Lawrence Gonzi’s empty promises and hollow propaganda is the number of youths who are joining the Labour Party. This is really heartening because the next General Election will be decided, above all, by the votes of youths, especially first-time voters. Youths want a political party which provides space for the realization of their ideals and dreams. They are, in substantial numbers, rejecting the Nationalist Party because of its cynicism and Machiavellianism. The PN is today paying the price for the way in which it won in 2008, using undemocratic means and questionable practices just within the perimeter of legality.

A new dawn is just round the corner for Malta. The innovative national movement spearheaded by the Labour Party will be in a position to realize its potential in 2013 or earlier if things continue as they are now. After the shambles of the past Nationalist Governments, I envisage at least a decade and a half of Labour in power because the PL is going from strength to strength under Joseph Muscat.