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The Maltese Herald

Alex Borg disavows dissent and reiterates he is doing “a positive campaign”

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by

Mark Camilleri
in

Yesterday, Nationalist Party leader Alex Borg reiterated his mantra that he wants to conduct “a positive campaign”, emphasising that he wants to avoid delving into issues of corruption and organised crime, which have become major issues in Maltese politics since Joseph Muscat’s time in government.

During the election campaign, he also skirted away from questions about corruption and simply stated that he wants to ensure that the assets declaration of MPs should be published after Prime Minister Robert Abela withheld their publication for the first time in history.

However, Alex Borg doesn’t just want to dissociate himself from the fight against the corruption, he is also disowning it by ignoring it completely, ultimately refusing to recognise it as a legitimate political issue. This also delegitimises actual dissidents who have been fighting and giving off opposition to the Labour government. The Opposition Leader has a major responsibility to serve as an alternative to the government and hold it accountable to its wrongdoing. By renouncing its responsibility to hold the government accountable, the Nationalist Party is effectively giving up one of its core responsibilities, and effectively lowering its standards as an alternative government.

Instead of offering something of its own, the Nationalist Party is also mimicing the Labour Party in essence and substance: rolling out a very similar economic and fiscal programme to the Labour Party by applying Labour’s own Peronist politics. The Nationalist Party wants to make it very clear that there is no radical difference between it and the Labour Party, and the fact that Labour is “copying” the PN’s proposals even defeats the purpose of the PN presenting itself as an alternative government. Indirectly, the PN is telling the general public that its role is being perfectly fulfilled while remaining in Opposition.

The Labour Party’s publicly-financed propaganda machine has convinced the Opposition Leader to stay away from issues of corruption and I can’t fathom how he is as naïve to believe that this is a good idea. His current election campaign looks just as tehatrical as Labour’s, putching single-point proposals in daily press conferences on a daily basis as if we were children or politics is a daily show.

The Nationalist Party has not even published its electoral manifesto yet, and apparently we are expected to be surprised daily by the political parties’ magical and bombastic proposals as they compete for our attention. Labour has dragged politics into a populist culture of infantile bidding wars over scrapbook-like proposals, and instead of opposing this new political paradigm, Alex Borg simply went along with it and effectively said, “this will put me in power.”

It’s all becoming so exasperating.

Comments

3 responses to “Alex Borg disavows dissent and reiterates he is doing “a positive campaign””

  1. Myself avatar
    Myself

    If PN is elected, it will soon be the duty of (a hopefully newly appointed) police commissioner to address corruption.

    Reply
  2. M.Galea avatar
    M.Galea

    Pn equal PL. Nothing different! Ghadu lanqas biss tkellem kelma wahda,wahda ta, x’ser jaghmel ghal ambjent!! He is much of the same!! Hlief jaghti l laghqiet bhal PL mhux jaghmel!! Kollha l istess pezza!! Jafu min xiex ibati l Malti! Tih c cejca halli jifrah bhal tarbija!! Tghid mhux qeghdin hemm ghal pajjiz kollha mafia shiha!!

    Reply
    1. Lorraine Perici avatar
      Lorraine Perici

      This time I definitely don’t agree with you. You can’t win an election on allegations of corruption as we have learned from the past. The aim is to get the PN in government and then the work will start.

      Reply

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