Who needs a UNESCO world heritage view when you can have propaganda billboards from Malta's two major parties? The decision to place these two billboards right in front of Valletta’s 450-year old bastions has set tongues wagging on social media.

There's a monument somewhere behind that billboard, begging to be seen. 

Hundreds of billboards have appeared all over Malta in the past months, in what is increasingly looking like a state-sanctioned free-for-all. 

"The fact that the government itself at times makes use of such billboards is the cherry on the cake," Michael Briguglio from Front Harsien ODZ had told Times of Malta two weeks ago.

Times of Malta reported last November that adverts in Santa Venera, Naxxar, St Julian's and Marsa have been placed on billboard structures, which were all served with enforcement notices by Mepa in 2014.

But the two billboards currently obscuring Valletta's bastions suggest there's little political will to change this sorry state of affairs.  

And to add insult to injury, one of the billboards has even managed to obscure Chris Briffa’s 2014 monument ProspettiVa. Talk about a double whammy.

Chris Briffa's ProspettiVa as it was meant to be admired.