Last year was just over three months old when the country was shaken by a horrific accident: a double decker tourist bus ran into overhanging trees in Żurrieq, leaving two persons dead, torn apart by the low-lying branches.

It was a shock – and a wake-up call in terms of road safety. Although our fatality rate is one of the lowest in Europe, the tally of road accidents appears to have prompted some serious thought among policy makers. In an article in this newspaper last Sunday, the Permanent Secretary at the Transport Ministry outlined a new approach which will have accident investigators look closely at road infrastructure in determining causes. The policy promises to reduce death and injury on the often chaotic, difficult-to-navigate streets of Malta.

Another accident that merits the ‘horrific’ headline happened to Simon Schembri, the traffic policeman who was dragged under a car by an underage driver. He lost an arm. But the police gained a hero, police work earned a new sense of appreciation, and first responders got a new foundation set up by Schembri himself that aims to help those injured in the line of duty.

An attempt to review last year’s major news events from the perspective of the positive – the good that comes from the bad – reveals other signs of hope. Political behaviour reached the pits, ranging from Glen Bedingfield’s swearing in Parliament to the Prime Minister’s non-action over the 17 Black revelations – the plan for Panama companies owned by his close associates Keith Schembri and Konrad Mizzi to receive millions from another offshore company belonging to an investor in the new power station.

But, credit to Deputy Speaker PN MP Claudette Buttiġieġ, Bedingfield was briefly expelled from the House and made to apologise. And in another indication that not all institutions are captured by the government, the National Audit Office issued a report on the power station contracts that stopped just short of showing up the tender-award process as an utter sham.

The 17 Black story – and several others suggesting misconduct in high office – also showed that the independent media still have some teeth, while the recent appointment of a parliamentary commissioner for standards in public life will hopefully act as another badly needed check on the excesses of the  people’s representatives.

Horrendous would be an apt description of the state of the nation’s democracy as outlined by the Venice Commission, that august European body of rule-of-law experts. It called into question a whole range of issues fundamental to democratic functioning: the independence of the judiciary and Attorney General, the Constitutional Court’s inability to annul laws, the blurred demarcation between legislature and executive, the concentration of power in the hands of the Prime Minister and institutions too weak to counter it.

While the Constitution has served Malta adequately for decades, it has taken the abusers of power in the present government to expose its most glaring weaknesses. Can we take seriously the Prime Minister’s pledge that all the Commission’s recommendations will be considered in the upcoming reform of the Constitution? Only, we would submit, if that reform is shaped by both local and foreign experts independently of political influence. Dare we hope for an outcome not subject to the exigencies of temporary political power?

One cause for hope this year is the potential change in leadership at both the PL and PN. The Prime Minister has pledged to step down before the next general election. The PN leader, swamped with ugly allegations over his financial and domestic behaviour, is still hopelessly lagging in the trust ratings. Could one hope for a change of guard on both sides next year?

If Joseph Muscat leaves, we will presumably also see the back of his chief of staff Schembri, who helped engineer Labour’s rise to power but whose financial dealings will cause his party to be badly judged by history.

Those arguing for Delia to stay miss the wood for the trees: it is not about whether he is innocent or guilty but about whether he is fit to lead a strong Opposition. Clearly he is not: the PN is in shambles and he must bear responsibility for the loss of respect from a large section of its traditional support base.

Are there any budding statesmen or women, potential leaders with the spine to put principles before self-profit, ready to take the places of the two leaders if called to do so? Is this too much to hope for? The country needs them badly.

This is a Times of Malta print editorial

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