To be honest, as a person who has militated in the Labour Party for so many years, it would never have occurred to me some time ago that the day would come when I would be advising citizens of goodwill not to vote Labour in the European Parliament and local council elections on June 8.

However, I see my country going down a very dangerous road under the present Labour administration and it is time for all those who love their country to make their voice heard.

It is indeed a pity that the present Labour government, which has the potential to do so much good for the Maltese islands, has chosen a dangerous and negative road that bodes ill for the future of our country. The Vitals magisterial inquiry is a golden opportunity to ensure a better future for our country, ensuring that nobody is above the law and guaranteeing justice for all, the rule of law, good governance and a culture of accountability in public life.

Unfortunately, by his actions, Prime Minister Robert Abela has spurned such a golden opportunity for a fresh start in Maltese politics and has turned the clock back to the darkest days of the 1970s and 1980s, when those who tried to uphold the rule of law were treated by the Labour governments of those days as being the villains.

Indeed, Magistrate Gabriella Vella deserves the gratitude of the whole nation for the sterling work she has carried out in the Vitals magisterial inquiry and certainly not the disgraceful criticism of Malta’s prime minister and several leading exponents of the Labour Party.

Moreover, it is highly regrettable that, as leader of the Labour Party, Abela has abdicated his responsibility to control elements within it which can cause great harm to our country. A minority of Labour exponents are being allowed to inflame passions among the most gullible Labour supporters.

Indeed, while the Vitals inquiry magistrate has had to endure the opprobrium heaped upon her by the likes of Joseph Muscat’s propagandist Manuel Cuschieri, the person most politically responsible for the public hospitals’ debacle, Muscat, is being presented to the most fanatically blind and easily manipulated Labour supporters as some kind of hero, a victim of the nefarious ‘establishment’.

This is a crafty Machiavellian political tactic. When you are with your back to the wall, create an imaginary enemy to inflame the passions of your supporters. One is reminded of what Nazi minister of propaganda, Joseph Goebbels is alleged to have once said: “Repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth.”

In psychology, this is known as “the illusion-of-truth effect”. In more simple layman’s terms, this can be explained as a very effective means of mass brainwashing. Regrettably, a good number of Labour supporters are vulnerable to such cunning manipulative tactics.

Perhaps the most condemnable behaviour of Abela is his insistence that what matters most is the vote of the majority of the Maltese people in the elections scheduled for June 8. This is another false narrative created by Labour.

The present Labour government’s decisions and actions are a perversion of democracy- Desmond Zammit Marmarà

The fallacious reasoning behind it is this: if the majority of Maltese people vote Labour in the European Parliament and local elections in June, then everything else, including the conclusions of the Vitals magisterial inquiry, pales into insignificance. The majority of the people will have approved Labour’s decisions and actions and that is all that counts.

Such reasoning is absolutely unacceptable in a democracy. Electoral victories are not a means of whitewashing past abuses of power and the wastage of millions in public funds.

However, the June elections in Malta are very important in one respect: delivering a message to the Labour government that enough is enough. This is perhaps the last chance Maltese citizens have to stop the downward slide of our country into what is starting to seem like a bottomless abyss.

If Labour wins resounding electoral victories on June 8, this would mean the rewarding of the abuse of power. A vote for Labour means a vote for a lack of transparency and accountability in public life, a vote for a lack of good governance and a vote for contempt of the rule of law.

Voters on June 8 are faced with a stark reality: if you love your political party and, above all, your country and wish for a better future, then you cannot by any stretch of the imagination vote Labour.

I know that many staunch Labourites will find it difficult not to vote Labour but they have to understand that a very large number of abstentions will be enough to send a strong message to the present Labour government that it needs to amend its ways.

Denying Labour your vote will not deprive the political party you love from continuing to rule the country but it would certainly help towards reforming the Labour Party and ensuring positive changes in its performance in government.

I am and will remain a Labourite but I am sadly forced to admit that the present Labour government’s decisions and actions are a perversion of democracy. This is a Labour government only in name. On June 8, I shall not be voting Labour.

Desmond Zammit Marmarà is a former Labour Party councillor and activist.