ToonToday: More of the same

Editorial • 5 January 2003

Need for a change

Labour leader Dr Alfred Sant hit the bull’s eye when he wrote in Friday’s L-Orrizont that this country needs a change.

The last time he wrote such a wide-ranging piece was after the arraignment of the Chief Justice Noel Arrigo and Justice Patrick Vella for alleged bribery charges.

His contribution as always was torn to pieces by the Nationalist press, then as now, we argued that as Leader of Opposition he had a right to voice his concerns and opinions.

His words were relayed on Super One, a station that together with Net TV are ignored by the Broadcasting Authority even though their news bulletins are nothing more than spin and propaganda.

In his L-Orrizont piece Alfred Sant blamed the Nationalist government for the present state of the country.

We also agree with this line of argumentation.

That is why we look forward to European Union membership, as a breath of fresh air and a window of opportunities.

Dr Sant is unfair when he portrays the membership issue as a direct benefit to Nationalists.

He knows that as soon as the structures of EU membership come into play, the traditional conservative segments of Maltese society will be talking very much in the same way as Dr Sant.

After the referendum and elections, expect this country to suffer an unnerving trauma, a cold turkey. Everyone will have nothing to talk about.

In Europe, Labourites of good faith will wake up to the realities of EU membership and hard core Nationalists will resent the moment that they waved blue flags in a frenzy as last seen in 1987.

Dr Sant will not relinquish his Euro-scepticism. He takes any critique on this point very personally and, because of his refusal to budge, he has transferred his party to the right of the political barometer. Not necessarily the bad side of the political spectrum but an incongruous one.

As he argued in the General Workers’ Union newspaper, this country is crying for change.

Yes, one which will catapult the Labour Party into the millennium and the Nationalist Party out of its old mould.

For this to happen there is urgent need for some serious surgery on our institutions and constitution.

Neither Dr Alfred Sant nor Dr Eddie Fenech Adami has chosen to walk down this path.

It will require first and foremost a change in the electoral system to allow for new political colours and to erase the individual oriented single transferable vote system.

The second is getting to the bottom of the financing of political parties in and out of parliament: the root of all evil and why Maltese and Gozitan politicians are so compromised.

The third is the independence and the method of appointment of the judiciary.

And one final thing: the need to divide the role and obligations of the State from that of the Church.