During this election campaign Malta has become a key clarion call. One party asks us to choose Malta while the other promises the best time for our country. However, behind the oratory and noise, the PL and PN’s vision for our country may be miles apart in the rhetoric but in the crucial test of putting words into concrete actions their vision for our country is a remarkably similar let-down.
Good governance and rejecting corruption has been a clarion call for post-independence parties when in opposition. However, more than half a century after Independence, we still have weak State structures which fail to guarantee good governance irrespective of who is in government. We still have a strong culture of political patronage ranging from the appointments of top posts in State entities right down to the constant flow of politicians pandering to all type of requests from their constituents, in the process riding roughshod over the rights of honest citizens.
Anyone who believes that electing the PN to government will change this is living an illusion. Forget the rhetoric and look at the facts. Both the PN in 25 years of government and the PL in four have failed to walk the talk and have retained, in effect strengthening, a system of political patronage which permeates the country. This corrupt system serves them well as a huge vote-catching machine but fails our country because it lets down those thousands of honest citizens who take a principled stand and refuse to be part of such a system.
The PL and PN have hogged the national discourse about love of country but have failed to walk the talk for Malta
In opposition both the PL and PN tried to give the impression that they had transformed into environmental champions while also attempting to perform a precarious balancing act with potent lobby groups who have been one of the main causes of the environmental disaster that our country faces. The PL and PN may seem to be at perpetual loggerheads but both are united in being praised by the developers’ lobby group that declares proudly that their positions are featured prominently in the PL and PN manifestos – the two supermarkets, as developers’ lobby president Sandro Chetcuti refers to them.
Both parties pander blatantly and unapologetically to the hunters’ lobby. Again, believing that the PN in government will change much is flying in the face of facts. Twenty-five years of the PN in government and four years of Labour have brought our country to the brink of irreparably damaging our country’s natural environment once and for all. The PN pre-2013 ODZ pullbacks and the post-2013 PL antics in weakening environmental legislation have left a deep mark on our natural environment which has left a lasting impact. Again the PL and PN have failed to walk the talk for our environment when in government.
Yes, the June 3 election is a choice for Malta. It is a day to vote for a better time for our country. However, this will not be achieved by voting for those parties who, despite all rhetoric, believe in a vision for Malta which condones political patronage, which fights corruption only when in opposition, which panders to powerful lobbies and fails our environment time and time again.
The PL and PN have hogged the national discourse about love of country but have failed to walk the talk for Malta. Now is the time to join the thousands who have voted AD election after election to push for a truly deep change to our political system, increasing the healthy checks and balances any democracy needs, by creating a truly multi-party parliamentary democracy. Now is the time to vote for a party which has always walked the talk in its 28 years of existence, in effect walking a more difficult and uphill political road in order to push for its vision.
A vision for Malta which has strong, democratic and independent State structures, in which accountability and transparency are the norm not the exception, in which sustainable development is not a buzzword but an economic direction which generates wealth but does not destroy our environment in doing so. A vision which will ensure that our country’s rapidly disappearing natural environment will have the strongest possible voice defending it in Parliament.
On June 3 walk the talk for Malta.
Vote Green, vote clean.
Arnold Cassola is chairman of Alternattiva Demokratika.