Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/722943
25 maltatoday, SUNDAY, 4 SEPTEMBER 2016 Opinion Dwarna with Mariella Dimech every Tuesday at 21.00 on TVM2 assigned it to the [same] occupant." 8 June 1988. That's just over a year AFTER the change in government. Now, we are talking about the Fenech Adami administration… no longer the 'bad old days' of Mintoff/KMB. Yet not only was the property not restored to its rightful owners, but the Nationalist government forced the Montanaro Gauci family through the exact same ordeal again. In the end, the victims were left with no option but to take the case to the European Court to reclaim their own property. And what is that, if not another way of saying that justice was denied them – in identical ways – under both these supposedly 'different' parties? Meanwhile: did the owners of the National Bank of Malta get their rightful property back after the change of government in 1987? Were they adequately compensated for the illegal nationalisation? Erm, no. The 'different' Nationalist administration went on to treat them exactly the same way as its Labour predecessor had… and actually compounded the theft, by selling shares in BOV to the public. This way, even after the local courts decided in favour of the original owners (30 years after filing the initial case, by which time some of the plaintiffs had long passed away), it remains impossible to ever rectif y the injustice. And that's just one example, concerning unlawful requisition of private property. Let's take another story at random. OK, this one is relatively trivial insofar as the actual issue is concerned… but remember that it's not the individual issue that counts; it is how the issue was handled by these supposedly 'different' parties. Over the past week or so, the General Workers Union has been banging its fist about a decision taken in 2008 by the Lawrence Gonzi administration, concerning public holidays. You may remember how Gonzi effectively cancelled any public holiday that fell on a weekend, by discontinuing the practice of adding that holiday to annual leave. You may also remember how the Labour Opposition – by then already under Joseph Muscat – had promised to restore those 'stolen' public holidays to their rightful owners… i.e., the Maltese workers, which Labour claims to represent. In any case: for some obscure reason, sections of the press went back to Gonzi for a reaction, asking him, the perfectly ridiculous question: does he regret that decision now? Unsurprisingly, the former Prime Minister stuck to his guns. He believed he was doing the right thing at the time – for reasons related to Malta's competitiveness in a globalised market, etc. – and, oh look: he still thinks so now. What I'd like to know, however, is why no one bothered asking today's Prime Minister for his reaction. Wasn't it Joseph Muscat who harshly criticised this measure back in 2008? And hasn't he already had three whole years to deliver on his aforementioned promise of reversing it? Well, did he? Evidently not, for public holidays are still subtracted from annual leave when they fall on weekends, just like Gonzi decreed. So what happened, folks? Could it be that Joseph Muscat, once occupying the hot-seat himself, gradually came round to Gonzi's way of thinking? Does he now agree that increasing Malta's annual public holidays would harm the economy? And – more pertinently – does this justif y what can only be described as a complete and utter volte-face? Think hard before answering, all ye who still identif y with the old 'Nationalist' and 'Labour' dualism. If the answer is 'yes' on all counts… what does it tell us about the intrinsic difference between those two parties? The difference you all still believe exists? And if it's 'no'… then how do we account for the change of heart? You can extend the same reasoning to all the other cases. It was for the same reason that the Fenech Adami administration re-requisitioned that Montanaro Gauci property, and also refused to restore the National Bank to its rightful owners. They might say different things while in Opposition… but once in government, you can rest assured they will invariably carry on with the same policies that they had fought against tooth and nail before the last election. And there, in a nutshell, you have incontrovertible proof that Malta's political divide is just a myth. Not even the two parties themselves believe in it any longer, for crying out loud. So why should the rest of us? Why, indeed… "You could almost take the European Court of Human Rights case as a blueprint for much that was abhorrent about the Labour government at the time, and that the Nationalists had promised to rectify. And the Montanaro Gaucis were not the only victims of outrageous abuse of government power"