Dear Joseph…

You once told us to call you by name, so I shall do exactly that.

If the polls are right (and the MaltaToday polls usually are), then this Sunday the Labour Party will win the election and you will become our Prime Minister.

I suppose you will be tempted to sit back and think to yourself - 'Mission accomplished'. You have, after all, been working towards this day for years now, so I guess that you are bound to feel that by winning the election and installing Labour in power, you will have achieved a major goal.

However to my mind, this election is simply a means to an end. Winning at the polls can by no means be considered a case of mission accomplished. You have simply been given a pass to commence the real mission - which is governing the country.

When people think of Labour governments, several unpleasant memories spring to mind. Over the next five years you will have the opportunity to prove the doomsayers wrong and show that a Labour government can in fact be a force for good. If you succeed and the country experiences five peaceful and productive years under your leadership, you will once and for all silence those who keep harking back to the 80s as an example of living under a Labour government. If, on the other hand, you flunk it, then the odds are that the Labour Party will lose the next election and will spend another 15 years in opposition. Clearly the stakes are high.

Thousands of people have trusted you with their vote. Some of them have voted Labour with some apprehension, but they decided to give you a chance. They have chosen to believe your call for a united, more inclusive Malta. Well, you now have to deliver - and fast. The honeymoon is going to be a short one, because the situation the country is in is a difficult one and we cannot afford to waste time.

Over the next few weeks boards and chairmen will resign. You will be under pressure to appoint people who have been loyal to your cause and who perceive that they were short-changed during the PN administration. It is very important that you resist this pressure and appoint people who are truly qualified and who can contribute, wherever their political sympathies may lie. It is only this way that you will finally prove that you meant it when you said that 'Malta Taghna Lkoll'. Apart from that, it is only through meritocracy and judicious appointments that the current malaise and mediocrity in several institutions will be resolved.

You need to act fast to pass a budget, because the present impasse is very bad for the economy. Government departments have had to put projects and payments on hold, which is creating a crisis for many companies in the private sector.

You also need to address issues such as the whistleblower's act and get ready for the resulting fallout. It is likely that we will suddenly be submerged by a tsunami of filth that will be very depressing to behold, but which is essential to truly clean out the stable. Our country cannot afford this corruption, so it must be stamped out once and for all. You must make it clear that it does not pay to be corrupt. Faith in our institutions is at an all-time low and must be restored.

Our health system must also be addressed. There has been major progress made over the last few years but there is still a lot to be done. Your team needs to get cracking to resolve the primary healthcare problem and to introduce stronger management systems at Mater Dei. That is the only way you will resolve the waiting list saga. Doctors are not necessarily good managers Joseph - they need a framework to help them manage their time and resources and it will be your job to provide it.

You also need to tackle the situation at MEPA fast. The staff in this authority are demotivated and the wheels of bureaucracy grind very, very slowly - which also impacts projects and cash flow, and hence the economy. It is clear that the "reform" has not succeeded and that a major rethink of the status quo is required.

Apart from that there are major environmental issues that have been left to fester and have not even been mentioned during the campaign. They may not be issues that have caught the public's imagination, but that does not mean that they are not important. The first one that springs to mind is the fact that 90% of our aquifers today do not meet the standards of the EU Water Framework Directive. Malta is running out of groundwater. The contribution of groundwater to the public water supply has decreased by 35% in the last 10 years (down from 18 million m3 in 1997 to 11.5 million m3 in 2008). This is resulting in increased dependency on Reverse Osmosis, with the consequential increase in water production costs. Moreover, farmers are already facing increasing salinisation of the water they are pumping from their boreholes (indeed some farmers have had to invest in their own RO plants to desalinate the water they use for irrigation). You need to address the situation before it gets totally out of hand and affordable water will be something that coming generations can only dream about - after all Malta is not only ours, but also belongs to the Maltese of the future.

Then there is power. A lot has been said during the campaign about the Labour proposal and most people are not sure exactly what to believe. Well, you have pledged your political future on getting it right, so you had better do so.

The list is endless - I touched on a few issues but there are so many more that are also worthy of mention. Party financing, the high rate of early school leavers, the eurozone crisis... God knows what a To Do list you are going to end up with once you settle down at your new desk at Castille.

So sleep well tonight Joseph, for tomorrow the real work begins. Good luck - the fate of the country depends on your getting it right.

No pressure.

Claudine