The Labour and Nationalist parties have each decided to broadcast the end-of-year messages from both party leaders on their media outlets today.
Party sources yesterday confirmed that Labour leader Joseph Muscat and Nationalist Party leader Adrian Delia’s New Year messages would be played on both One and Net, the two parties’ television stations, as “a sign of goodwill”.
“The idea is for the messages of both leaders to be played to both audiences. It’s a breakaway from the way things have been done in the past,” one PL source said.
Meanwhile, a PN source said the airing of Dr Muscat’s message on Net signalled “a different approach to partisan politics.”
A sign of goodwill
“I don’t believe this has ever happened in Malta before, at least not as far back as I can remember. It is a new way of doing things,” the source said, making a reference to the slogan on which Dr Delia ran for PN leader: A new way.
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Other Labour sources also pointed to a difference in approach, saying something like this would never have happened while Simon Busuttil was at the helm of the PN.
“There was no open communication between PN and Labour during the last legislature, so something like this could not have happened,” one source said, adding that perhaps this could help scale down the tensions between the parties.
Last year, then Opposition leader Dr Busuttil said in his end-of-year message that 2016 had been “worrying”. In a low-key video shot in his family home in Lija, where he said he and his partner, Kristina, shared their lives, Dr Busuttil said that what we had once taken for granted we could no longer be certain of.
Dr Muscat’s end-of-year messages have gone for more production values than the PN’s, using drone footage of the Maltese countryside and paid performers that in one instance even included an orchestra playing on a clifftop.
The content of Dr Muscat’s messages have generally focused on Labour’s achievements, focusing on social reforms and economic stability.