People would rather hear about proposals aimed at improving their quality of life than be barraged with "negativity", Prime Minister Joseph Muscat insisted on Tuesday evening.
Addressing Labour Party followers in Żejtun ahead of Saturday's elections, Dr Muscat chastised the Nationalist Party for resorting to what he said was a negative campaign. Despite losing two elections and Opposition leader Adrian Delia promising "a new way" of doing politics, the PN had resorted to its old ways, he said.
"One would think that if they did not get the message in 2013, they would have in 2017. Genuine Nationalists admitted that they were too negative.
And what happens? They elected someone who acknowledged this but then when it came to his first test next Saturday, we have heard nothing but negativity. Hopefully, it will be a case of third time lucky," Dr Muscat said.
People, he argued, do not want negativity but rather a clear indication of where the country is heading, pointing to good quality of life as one of the main priorities of today's society.
To do so, he went on, the government was using the surplus to improve people's lives, making changes that reduced pollution and increased open spaces, improved health services and even introducing new policies such as the national sports strategy unveiled earlier on in the day.
"Yesterday we unveiled our plans for the health centres. Earlier today, we unveiled the national sports strategy. We have become used to being first in everything and we want to be first in sports too," the Prime Minister said.
He also referred to statistics issued by the European Commission on Tuesday which he said confirmed Malta had the fourth-lowest electricity bills in Europe, something which the Labour government had worked extremely hard to achieve.
And while the government strived to achieve such a result, the PN continuously opposed this, Dr Muscat said, saying that he felt as though he was "still at school going through an obstacle race" anytime changes were implemented.
"We had to go through an obstacle race to slash electricity prices because of the hurdles by the Opposition. We found no help from the Opposition," Dr Muscat lamented.
He then ended his speech by urging followers to, come Saturday, vote for all of the party's candidates to send a message to the PN who he again said wanted to discourage people from voting by not fielding enough candidates.