The Republic is a Socratic dialogue, written by Plato around 375BC, concerning justice, the order and nature of the just city state and the just man. It is Plato’s best-known work and has proven to be one of the world’s most influential works of philosophy and political theory.

In the dialogue, Socrates talks with various Athenians and foreigners about the meaning of justice and whether the just man is happier than the unjust man. They consider the natures of existing regimes and then propose a series of different, hypothetical cities in comparison, culminating in Kallipolis, a utopian city state ruled by a philosopher king.

We might not want or be able to find a philosopher king to rule us but we could try to create many philosopher citizens who can critically think about politics and would be able to choose wheat over tares. It is a long haul.

Mani pulite was a state judicial investigation into political corruption in Italy held in the 1990s, consequentially causing the end of the so-called ‘First Republic’ and the disappearance of many political parties.

The corrupt system uncovered by the investigation was referred to as Tangentopoli.

Tangentopoli began on February 17, 1992, when Judge Antonio Di Pietro had Mario Chiesa, a member of the centre-left Italian Socialist Party (PSI), arrested for accepting a bribe from a Milan cleaning firm. The PSI distanced themselves from Chiesa. Distraught over this treatment by his former colleagues, Chiesa began to give information about corruption implicating them.

I wonder whether I am the only one who sees some similarities amid the obvious differences between what happened in Italy in the 1990s and what is happening (and not happening) nowadays in Malta. However, one may be forgiven for referring to the Maltese situation as ‘Belt-it-Tixħim’ (Bribesville).

What stands out as a similarity to my eyes is the need for a second republic. Realistically, only a new fresh Nationalist government with the cooperation of a newly-elected fresh crop of Labour MPs and perhaps some members from the smaller parties may help stabilise the nation’s reputation and reconstruct a new politico-legal framework. A new constitutional set-up. Making sure the executive does not have an excess of ‘say’, like it has now, in what the democratic institutions of this country should and should not do. Because, sometimes, in order to have real democracy you need to lose executive control.

There is the need for a mega-paradigm shift- Alan Xuereb

Labour at this stage cannot do that. Labour is trying to detach itself, like Bettino Craxi tried to do from Chiesa, by stating that those implicated in bribes, money laundering and, perhaps much more, are just ‘splinters’. But, at the same time, it does not really disown them. It is terrified of them. It is scared of the Chiesa-effect. That is why as much as the majority of Labour supporters, many party officials and some MPs would want to sever the dark filaments of crime from the party, in order to win the next election, they cannot.

The PN has also a choice to make. Also, a hard one. It has to promise to lose control over so many institutions and do so legislatively. The PN cannot afford to leave the country in the state it is now. It has to undertake and deliver in the first month of its re-election to kick-start a national institutional reform – a clean sweep – changing forever the rules of the game. The PN has to help the eventual Labour opposition to clean itself. Instead of what Labour did to the PN opposition. Only the PN can do this.

Unfortunately, this Labour government has been manipulated to fuel its sleaze roadmap while trying to bribe the population through micromanaging their whims. Whether those impulses were legitimate or not, was irrelevant. Give them whatever they want: instant gratification. This is a short-term strategy that works, well, in the short term.

The Maltese electorate has no choice, now. Voting is something that is very individual but should not be personal. Voting should be done for the common good. There is the need for a mega-paradigm shift. The need for a new republic.

Alan Xuereb is a lawyer, linguist and political philosophy author.