Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1495215
maltatoday | SUNDAY • 19 MARCH 2023 9 INTERVIEW 'mediocrity', and 'more mediocrity' One difficulty, I find, is that the category we're talking about is not a homogenous group of peo- ple. It's not as though they're all 'liberal', or all 'conservative'; and even their reasons for not voting might be totally different from one another. So what we need to do, as a par- ty, is find the common ground that unites them. It's like the 'Ven Diagrams' we used to do at school: when different circles 'intersect' which each other. And in this particular diagram, the 'common intersection' is the fact that - regardless what else they might disagree upon – all those different groups agree that... 'they don't want things to remain the same'. They don't want 'another five years of La- bour, after 2027'; and neither do they want to go back to 'the same old Nationalist Party, of before 2013'. The common factor, then, is that they all want something different; and we need to push on that. We need to work on transmitting the idea that, 'Yes, things can change'. It doesn't have to always be a 'lesser- of-two-evils' choice; we CAN choose something which is honest; caring; and sympathetic to the people. And I think that ADPD is al- ready a voice for those people who have been ignored totally, in all these years; and whose in- terests have consistently been sacrificed on the altar of greed; the altar of corruption; the altar of 'Economic Growth', etc. Where are those people 'repre- sented', in any sphere of public life? Who is actually standing up for the honest, law-abiding, ordinary Maltese citizens... the people who do things properly, by the book, without any 'steal- ing' or 'defrauding'? Nobody is there, right now, to voice the concerns of those peo- ple. And we would like to be that voice, speaking on their behalf... You just said that people 'don't want another Labour govern- ment after 2027; but don't want a return to pre-2013 PN, either'. Isn't there a danger, though, that both Labour and PN might end up moving even further to the right? Until recently, for example, Labour was pushing through a controversial amend- ment to the abortion law. But with its popularity plummeting, this is likely to be withdrawn. Are you concerned that Malta may start regressing on civil liberties? I'm very concerned, yes: espe- cially considering that in Malta, we haven't even begun to take into consideration certain fem- inist issues, like abortion. It's as though we Maltese women have remained stuck where we were, back in the 1970s. Nothing much has changed, since then; and nothing is really going to change for us now, either. As women, we know that we will have a misogynistic way of governing, whether under a La- bour or Nationalist administra- tion. So again, it's a question of 'giv- ing a voice' to those who are ignored. And in this case, we're talking about women: a category that amounts to half the popula- tion. As ADPD, then, we have to be the ones to say, 'Hey, women count too, you know! We need to have a strong female voice. We cannot just keep placing women's issues on the back- burner... just because it makes certain people uncomfortable to discuss them.' And that includes the amend- ment to the abortion law. This is not something you can sim- ply withdraw from the agenda, just because it's going to cost you votes. What about women's right to healthcare? What if an- other case [like Andrea Pruden- te] happens again...? And besides: of all the things Robert Abela could have 'changed', in order to try and regain those lost votes... was 'female issues' the only thing he could come up with? Is that what he thinks is costing him so much popularity, right now? I would say there are a lot of other things he could be prior- itising, before deciding to 'sacri- fice' women's rights. For exam- ple: he could have dealt better with the Steward case, in yes- terday's parliamentary debate. THAT is the sort of thing that might actually have won him a bit of approval, at the moment. But no. Not only did he behave like a child, throughout the ses- sion; but he actually took the side of Steward, even at a time when that company was making highly defamatory accusations about our own country. On the same day as Steward publicly claimed, on their web- site, that 'you cannot do business with the Maltese government'... instead of defending Malta's reputation, the Prime Minister chose actually defend Steward itself: by listing out all its sup- posed 'investments and achieve- ments', in Parliament! And it's exactly the same with other issues, too: such as devel- opment. The government never shows strength, by standing up to the construction lobby, in defence of the ordinary Maltese citizen. It's always the other way around... That brings me to another ques- tion about our survey results. The timing suggests that the Steward court ruling may have been the main catalyst, for this apparent reversal of Labour's political fortunes. But was it the only one? How much of this sudden decline do you think is also attributable to Malta's en- vironmental degradation, in re- cent years? It's a bit of both, I would say. The Steward case was certainly the 'cherry on the cake'; but then again, 'environmental degrada- tion' is something that people see, touch, and come into con- tact with, every single day of their lives. It is a tangible daily reality, to all those who live in close prox- imity to a construction site; or wherever roads are suddenly closed from one day to the next, with no planning whatsoever. With the Steward contract, on the other hand: the figures of 'E400, E500 million' might sound like a huge sum... but you can't 'touch' them; you can't 'feel' them; and as far as most people are concerned, those fig- ures exist only 'in the abstract'. So in practical terms: while the Steward case may have provided a focal point, for all that anger... people ultimately feel a lot an- grier, about the things that affect them directy, on a daily basis. And yes, I think that the con- struction issue does play a large part, in the Labour Party's... shall we call it, 'downfall'. Because time and again, Labour has clearly shown that it's always on the side of the construction in- dustry; and NEVER on the side of the people whose lives are made miserable through con- struction. Nowhere was this clearer, by the way, than in the case of Jean- Paul Sofia [who died in a con- struction fatality last Decem- ber]. Why is the government so hell-bent on not holding a public inquiry? What is Robert Abela trying to hide...? I think I can guess; but you asked the question already, so... why do you think Robert Abela is so keen to avoid a pub- lic inquiry in the Sofia case? Well, I think it's because he's trying to hide all the 'shortcom- ings' in how our national insti- tutions actually function: the same 'shortcomings' that were separately identified by the re- cent inquiry into the femicide of Bernice Cassar; and even by the Daphne Caruana Galizia public inquiry. Both those inquiries had con- cluded, in no uncertain terms, that the Maltese state was re- sponsible for the murders of Daphne, and Bernice – and for the same reason: because of the repeated failure of national in- stitutions, to function as they should. So now, can anyone serious- ly expect Robert Abela to allow yet another public inquiry, into yet another fatality: knowing full well that it will only find his own government guilty of exactly the same shortcomings, for the third time in a row? THAT is what Robert abela is trying to hide; and that, I think, also explains why his party has lost so much popularity, recent- ly. Because people can see with their own eyes, that there's no one actually defending the vic- tim, in these cases; and that the only people this government ev- er defends, are the usual bunch of 'criminals and delinquents'. Small wonder, then, that so many people are now getting 'fed up'...