Labour achievements

I would like to refer to the letter by John Saliba (May 11).

Mr Saliba decided to answer my correspondence dated April 29. I was very let down by Mr Saliba's answer because he only wrote about what according to him happened in the past. I happened to be more interested in the future. Let's make it clear we as Socialists are proud of our past achievements.

Because although as Mr Saliba correctly wrote I don't have experience of past Labour governments (because I am only19 and not because I have a memory loss as Mr Saliba wrote), I can easily comment about their achievements and the good they did for our country.

The past Labour governments, which apparently used to shock Mr Saliba, gave women the right to vote. Past Labour governments who used to upset Mr Saliba introduced free education, free health services and the welfare state. These Labour governments gave priority to social housing so everyone could live in a decent house. Maybe Mr Saliba, being a Nationalist, does not appreciate these policies which created a new social class, the middle class and eliminated poverty. Today under the Nationalist administration and with an economy which, according to Mr Saliba is recovering, poverty in Malta is increasing. And this is evident from official statistics.

But I do agree with Mr Saliba on one point. He wrote that "we have been performing miracles since Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici handed over the reigns of powers to the then Nationalist leader Eddie Fenech Adami". And this was a perfect statement. This because when Dr Fenech Adami became Prime Minister Malta had no debt. Today Malta's debt amounts to over Lm1 billion.

This was a perfect statement because when Dr Fenech Adami became Prime Minister, public entities such as Air Malta used to make profit and employ a good number of people. Today all these entities are either doing drastic financial losses because of mismanagement or are privatised.

Reality is reality. Lawrence Gonzi has till now not managed to win at least one of his electoral tests while Alfred Sant won three during the last 10 months.

In his letter Mr Saliba also tried to obscure those with Socialist ideals by writing comments such as "Mr Balzan must be a Socialist as he does not know what he is talking about" and "here is another Socialist talking rubbish". We as Socialists promote democracy and an equal society. We promote a good quality in public service; we work against discrimination and we want to give everyone the same opportunities to move forward. Maybe for Mr Saliba all this is rubbish, but I can assure him that for many people our ideology is the hope that in the near future they will start living a better life.

Our ideology is the hope for a better Malta because as our comrades from Spain, Portugal and the UK did during the past months we will win the next general election. And that would be the first step for a better Malta.