Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1522634
maltatoday | SUNDAY • 16 JUNE 2024 6 INTERVIEW Alfred Sant: 'Voters irked by clientelism competition between ministers' ALFRED Sant warns against a "competition of clientelism" within government that is irking the electorate with the former Labour leader pointing his finger at the oversized Cabinet. "I won't be popular by saying this but the fact that there are so many ministers and parliamentary secretaries all with their own customer care adds to the clientelism com- petition between them," Sant tells me as we sit down in his MEP Fgura office. Sant is now a retired politician, and his office is slowly being dismantled. Nonethe- less, his observations carry with them the judiciousness of someone with a lifetime experience of politics. He insists the multiple customer care of- fices create "big strategic problems" for government. "This happened in the Siġġie- wi housing estate case where the way that was carried out was not good," he tells me with reference to the 99 voters who were registered on social housing units in the locality when these were not yet habitable. His observations come in the aftermath of local and MEP election results that show how the Labour Party had its supermajority slashed. Sant notes that while the electorate seemed to punish the PL in government - something which he argues is to be ex- pected in such an election - the National- ist Party did not seem to benefit enough from the result. He attributes this to the PN's lack of ideological determination and its negative attitude. Sant states that one should focus on the performance of independent candidates. While admitting that this trust in inde- pendent candidates could not be attributed to any single factor, he says it shows that the two big parties are not adequately re- sponding to the challenges of today's soci- ety. "They're still discussing what's going on with the language of yesterday," he says. The former PL leader says despite this, party loyalty still exists, although many feel they are caught between the loyalty for their party and their disgruntlement to- wards the way government is responding to challenges. And Sant's advice to new politicians: "Stay in touch with what people experience, while refraining from closing yourselves off in a bubble." Former Labour prime minister and MEP Alfred Sant has bowed out of politics after a 40-year career. He offers his observations and wisdom on the MEP election result, the government and politics in this interview with MATTHEW FARRUGIA. T he church's mission is to love and serve. You cannot love and serve unless you listen. If you do not listen, you cannot pass on your word.