Before the dust had even settled on the inquiry into the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia and while its findings – that the state should shoulder responsibility for the murder because a culture of impunity was created from the highest echelons of power within Castille – were still being discussed, the Nationalist Party came up with a gimmick that it must have thought was a timely vote-catching response.
It promised to hold a referendum – of Gozo residents – to help decide whether to build a tunnel between the islands.
A more appropriate reaction, one might think, would be the promise to set up a system of ongoing independent investigation that would seek out and stop the sort of top-level corruption that had led to Daphne’s slaughter.
But it hardly matters, anyway, because the referendum is contingent on the PN winning the next election and we all know that the odds are well stacked against that happening in the foreseeable future.
For all the difference they have made or will make, the bold investigators might just as well have sat for four years and concluded that Comino was an island surrounded by water, instead of finding that the Maltese government at the very top is as bent as a paper clip.
They didn’t tell the voting population anything it didn’t know. In fact, the only surprise was that it came out with the truth.
And how was this dictatorial style of behaviour by the government possible? Well, basically, it was because there was nobody in parliament to challenge the government and hold it to account. Labour hadn’t come to power in 2013 because it had better policies than the PN: it was elected because the PN had run out of ideas. ‘Time for a change’ is always a likely option when a sitting government has become boring.
Labour was elected in 2013 because the PN had run out of ideas
A referendum on the tunnel proves how bereft the PN has become for a policy. It wasn’t even an original thought when they first supported it. The Joseph Muscat team came up with it, possibly as a smokescreen to distract attention from near transparent corruption in other matters and, following a weird ‘opinion poll’ showing that 85 per cent of the population was in favour of a tunnel, the PN thought it had no option but to include it in its own manifesto.
If the PN was seriously concerned about the number of people who are ‘forced’ to cross the channel on a regular basis, a better idea might have been a promise to make any new industries coming to Malta locate, instead, to Gozo. It might have promised to make university lectures concurrent, via the internet, on both islands. It might have suggested relocating one or more central government departments to Gozo.
It might even have said that there would be no more building on Gozo until there was proof of a need for it. And it might have suggested a tax, meanwhile, on all empty buildings on the island.
It might even have promised that the plans – initiated by Labour along with the tunnel nonsense – like the Marsalforn breakwater, the cruise liner quay, the 250-yacht extension of the marina and the half-hearted building or resurfacing of roads would be started (and finished).
Meanwhile, I will offer the PN’s Gang of Three some advice that they shouldn’t need.
First and most obvious is that it is not only Gozitans who cross the channel frequently: people from the other island cross in their thousands. Second: while Gozitan students like to come home to get their cooking and laundry done by mum, that’s only during term-time, or about half the year. Third, some people need to use the ferry to get to work, but not necessarily every day, and there are fewer than there used to be. And, fourth, tourists – those important people who bring money – see the ferry as part of their holiday.
Oh, and while the PN was sleeping through the inquiry, two competing fast-ferry services to Valletta had been introduced. So the tunnel plan can safely be torn up and forgotten.
Should the PN really promise a clean-up and a government free of corruption? I don’t think that’s necessary at all. Malta has no recollection of having had one. They might as well include in the manifesto that family and friends (and party supporters) will always receive special favours and that they would be offering the other side a chance to benefit after 10 years of being ignored.
It could be a winning formula. More important, it would be honest.