Let’s blame the government!

Some time ago, I went to a particular ministry over some local council business. As I was about to enter the room of the official I had come to speak to, a person brushed past me loudly proclaiming to all and sundry that he would not vote at all in the coming elections: those for the European Parliament, those for local councils, and the next general election. I later learned that this person expected to be given a job for which he did not even have the minimal qualifications required.

This has become a familiar story today. Some people need to be educated in the fact that the Government is precisely there to govern. It is not there to provide favours to people or to make up for the latter’s personal deficiencies. This idea that some unreasonable people have that they either get what they want, even when this is preposterous, or else they threaten not to vote next time shows the warped idea some people have of what the government is there for.

The Government is blamed whatever it does. A person recently stopped me in the street and told me that she was so sorry but she would not be voting for the present party in government anymore because a person of a different political opinion had been given a promotion instead of her.

I checked and found that the person in question had more seniority, much better qualifications and more experience than she had!

Another person was speaking to me about the fact that he had been discriminated against for supporting the political party in opposition.

What was his particular complaint? His son wanted to apply for a post in the public service which was only open to serving public officers. The government was to blame, he insisted, because it was not ready to bend the rules a bit to make it possible for his son to apply from outside the public service. Now the post had been given to a serving public officer whom he knew to be a supporter of the present government and whom I knew to be an extremely capable and competent worker and not actively involved in politics. This was a case of gross political discrimination, the complainant argued.

Given the circumstances, a baseless allegation, of course!

Unfortunately, this is very often the situation in this country. Whether it is jobs, promotions, contracts, tenders, housing, and son on, rules and regulations should apply to everybody else but not to me.

This is the way some people reason. This is all the result of decades of political clientelism when political support for a particular political party was “bought” through the dispensing of favours.

I find it refreshing that Prime Minister Joseph Muscat is trying to eliminate all forms of clientelism from the way government operates.

I also find it grossly unfair that the Nationalist Opposition is attacking the Labour government because competent Labourites are sometimes appointed to top posts and as board members.

Since when does being a supporter of the government of the day disqualify one from being appointed to a prestigious post? Is it not competence for appointment to such a post which should be the deciding factor in all this?

Let us really be honest with ourselves and admit that the days of a Labour government for the Labourites only is a thing of the past. “Malta for All” (Malta Tagħna Lkoll) is not just an empty slogan used to good effect to win the 2013 general election. It is instead something real, the cornerstone of the Labour government’s policy.

Muscat has revolutionised the way government functions and its relationship with all its citizens

However, we still need to educate many members of the public about this. Labourites have to realise that being known supporters of the Government does not mean that they have some superior right to government services compared to others of a different political opinion.

Those who hold a different political opinion from that of the political party in government should also be conscious of the fact that Labourites who get what they deserve are not being favoured by the Government when they get what they are entitled to as citizens.

Of course, one also has to be reasonable. It is obvious, for instance, that certain political appointments have to be made.

What do you expect, that the Labour government should appoint a staunch Nationalist to a top sensitive position?

Muscat has even stuck his neck out and done this in a couple of top posts where this is possible.

However, one must realise that the national interest dictates that the opposite should be the case in many other examples where it is essential that the appointee should be a person one hundred per cent committed to the policy of the political party in government.

Muscat has revolutionised the way government functions and its relationship with all its citizens. He deserves our respect for this.