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Kurt Sansone
With a precise brief to sound upbeat about the economic and fiscal results achieved so far, a visibly tired Prime Minister, yesterday only just resisted the age-old tactic of justifying his successes by directly attacking his political opponents.
There were only two broadsides against the Labour Party and even when he did take a dig, the attack was not frontal. Gonzi chided those who have a “political agenda” to “paint everything black” by “cherry picking” statistics to suite their need.
“Actually it’s not cherry picking, because a cherry is good to taste,” Gonzi half-joked. “They pounce on every negative statistic that comes from Europe but choose to ignore the positive data,” he said, citing as an example what he described as the “wrong interpretation” of data emanating from the Labour Force Survey, which showed Malta registering the highest unemployment growth in the EU.
Addressing the press at the Ambassador’s Room in Castille, with a wireless lapel microphone attached to his jacket, Gonzi was flanked by junior minister Tonio Fenech. They were seated on a glass table with a blue backdrop depicting what seemed to be a single father with his three kids, looking amazed and pointing towards the theme of the pre-budget document: securing our future.
That is the message Gonzi wanted to deliver. He insisted: “This is not a pre-budget document for the election. This is a pre-budget document that will secure the future for the next 15, 20 years.”
And then, in a patronising tone, he told journalists in the room that the document would be securing their future and that of the young parliamentary secretary sitting beside him.
Gonzi won’t be believed that the budget for 2007, with proposals for tax relief and other social fiscal measures, is not an election budget, even if he insisted that the election will take place in 2008.
The 178-page pre-budget document 2007 is 90 pages longer than its first predecessor last year. Even the Prime Minister’s foreword is lengthier this year with the word ‘vision’ used six times and ‘collective’ used five times.
Gonzi’s photograph accompanying the foreword is in full colour depicting the Prime Minister in front of a blurred version of what seems to be a Stars and Stripes flag. The image is elegantly smaller than last year’s.
The document may be too heavy and lengthy to read, especially during the coming two weeks when all of Malta will be enjoying a national siesta. Few will take the Prime Minister’s advice to take the document with them on holiday and find time to read it. But Gonzi and Fenech will be waiting for the public’s feedback until the end of September.
Hopefully, there won’t be any pre-budget sabotage like what happened last year when all consultation on the budget was derailed by the, suddenly-discovered Lm50 million black hole in Enemalta’s coffers.
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