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Writing in another section of the press, the shadow minister Carmelo Abela has assured us that if we vote Labour we shall get… Labour! That is the terrible problem!
Because whenever we got Labour in the past, we also got several fringe benefits. Whenever we got Labour, we also got organised violence with several well-known criminals protected by the police and by a particular Labour ex-minister whose name is still associated with these criminals. When we got Labour we also got organised institutionalised corruption which is still closely associated with another particular ex-minister. Whenever we got Labour, workers lost their sacrosanct right to take any sort of industrial action: ask the teachers, the doctors, the architects, the fitters afloat, the Marsa garage employees… The opposition lost its right to celebrate the independence of our island, to hold public meetings, to organise indoor conferences, demonstrations, protests.
With a Labour government we lost our Constitutional Court and we all know how judges were threatened. Under a Labour administration it was a crime to have a colour TV set, a cordless telephone, a computer, a video recorder/camera or any sort of electronic equipment. With a Labour government we had continuous confrontations, piques and battles with every sector of the population. The shelves in our supermarkets were empty and the GWU was inexistent. Remember the Casino employees who were kicked out by the police? A particular union official asked them to go to Santa Rita!
Eight years ago the majority was not satisfied with all the prosperity brought on us by Dr Fenech Adami and his successive governments. And decided to try Dr Alfred Sant and his new Labour. What a horrible experience it was! But God heard our fervent prayers and decided to show us that Dom Mintoff – God bless him – was really a saviour! And we were given a second chance to rectify our mistake. And we grasped that one in a million chance and rectified the mistake.
Young voters will find it extremely difficult to understand what life was like under socialist regimes: all the Nationalist party clubs and the general headquarters were destroyed, some of which were razed to the ground; the same fate befell the MUT headquarters, the Curia, the private residence of the leader of the opposition (with an absolute majority of votes), the Progress Printing Press. Students who chained themselves to the railings in front of Castille were beaten up by thugs and by some policemen, their graduation ceremony was disrupted because one of the students looked insultingly at the President and at the Minister… unbelievable but very true. I am saying this because young voters may be tempted to vote Labour just for a change or to spite someone. Vote Labour and curse the moment you did so!
In 1998 we were give a suspended sentence and so we have to be very careful when we come to decide. Labour officials have already told us that they would follow the same policy of the 70s and the 80s. God forbid we go back to those frightful years when our country was moving fast towards a complete dictatorship. The time of the tyrants is now part of our past history. Hopefully!
G Demartino
Mosta
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