Yesterday, Prime Minister and Labour Party Leader Robert Abela rallied his party members to celebrate his five years in office. He gave an hour-long speech that supposedly marked his vision and the Labour Party’s policy, but all I could decipher from it is that the Labour Party is in favour of subsidies for the poor and will begin a campaign to stop Jason Azzopardi from initiating any further Magisterial Inquiries.
The Labour Party is still emphasising about the massive amount of subsidies it issued during the Covid pandemic to reiterate its social credentials. Apart from the fact that a large portion of these subsidies have been mismanaged, this argument is redundant and doesn’t give the Labour Party any merit. Avoiding an economic crisis by subsidising the economy with public funds isn’t rocket science. Expectations are that public spending should be invested appropriately, and taking on excessive amounts of debt while abusing this expenditure and even mismanaging it is not something applaudable.
Although it is true that an economic crisis was averted, the government’s finances were in a relatively good state when Robert Abela entered office. Turning on the public taps wasn’t such a hard thing to do, but ensuring better living standards, year-on-year, is a totally different matter.
The Prime Minister also said that the Labour Party will announce a long-term vision for the country which is distinct from the Party’s manifesto and supposedly will modernise the economy and the country. He then switched to an attack against Jason Azzopardi, claiming that the Labour Party will change the law to prevent further requests for Magisterial Inquiries. The Labour government has already made this pledge.
Jason Azzopardi is crippling the government as he exposes the corruption of government members to the rule-of-law through Magisterial Inquiries in a scenario where Labour politicians enjoy impunity by Police Commissioner Angelo Gafa. Single-handedly, Jason Azzopardi is being more effective as an opposition than the Nationalist Party, so it’s obvious that the Prime Minister and the Labour government feel more threatened by Jason Azzopardi than by Opposition Leader Bernard Grech.
Nothing has changed for the Labour Party and the Prime Minister prefers to struggle for a Devil’s Pact instead of restoring rule-of-law by giving up power over the Attorney-General and the Police: this point has been a regular topic of discussion on this website. The Labour Party can promise many things, but its governance will still be hampered with its abuse of power and cover-ups of organised criminals and politicians. Restoring rule-of-law would revive all other facets and aspects of society while abuse of power and criminality in politics is put on check.
Website Editor
Historian and Publisher
Leave a Reply