editorial

False interpretation of electoral results

When the results for the local council elections are announced there will be a stampede for the calculators followed by a false interpretation of results.
Both political parties will claim victory, where there is no sign of it. We will witness the worst example of manipulation of the truth, figures and numbers.

It has happened so often that people are unsure of what to believe.

We the media are to blame for this.

We must detach ourselves from the spin doctors that control the transmission of twisted truths and make our own assessments. It is unfortunate that there is no independent body that can be sourced and quoted to analyse electoral results.

Newsrooms should come together to combine their resources to cultivate these independent sources. Perhaps a joint fund to drive these independent observers would help. There is one thing that this newspaper intends to do. It plans to shoot down any attempt by any party to distort the true interpretation of the results.

This can easily be done.

It is irrelevant as to why people vote red, blue or green. The most important issue here is what the result should read.

That is why we have chosen to start analysing the local council elections from this very issue.

Restructuring at PBS

We should be particularly interested in what happens in many loss-making government organisations.

We are the ones who foot the bills.

There is an endless lament over the debt-ridden dockyard yet everyone seems to forget the others, the Water Services Corporation, Enemalta and PBS.

We are especially interested in the latter; only this week, a senior consultant resigned from his post because of what he termed an impossible situation.

There was much talk of restructuring at PBS, but all we know is that there seem to be very few plans to make this happen.

Worse still, we all know that the staff complement at PBS has little or no work to do and yet more programmes continue to be farmed out.

The top men at PBS do not take kindly to our comments, and we will suffer for daring to raise the matter. But we can weather this small storm.

There is ‘omertà’ at PBS over certain operations and this should not be the case.

There is no procedure on how programmes are chosen, delegated and whether they will rake in revenue. Or whether they are loss-making or not.
We will stop here for the time being.

Minister Louis Galea has set some very daring and promising targets for PBS. We have every intention of seeing whether they are followed through.
It is all about accountability and political responsibility.

Malta as a peace broker

On the international scene Malta has focused all its attention on the European Union. Malta's foreign minister is a respectable chap with a balanced view.

Unfortunately this obsession with Europe has re-routed our attention from the biggest international crisis - the Middle East.

Malta has much to offer here, by taking advantage of its historical and geographical background.

Unfortunately there is an attitude that all we can do is watch, when this is not the case. We must push for a settlement.

The European Union foreign ministers meeting in Spain are working hard to take a leading role in the issue. Israel treats this with disdain.

Why shouldn't we get involved on this level?

Significantly, the Maltese government yesterday issued a statement calling for restraint, with regards to both the violence and also antagonistic statements. The decision of our government to make a contribution in this way is welcome. After all, it is in our interest to see this conflict resolved and it could also inject more purpose into our stalled evolutionary role as a neutral European Mediterranean state.