Muscat invokes Eddie in echo of ‘87

After a week dominated by revelations of graft in the procurement of fuel by Enemalta, much of the discussion predictably centred on corruption.

A new Labour government, Muscat insisted, would concentrate on introducing the necessary checks and balances to ward off what he decribed as an "institutional trust deficit" affecting various aspects of public administration.

Referring specifically to the corruption scandal that rocked the judiciary almost exactly 10 years ago, Muscat observed how, after the initial outcry subsided, nothing was actually done to address the mounting perceptions of corruption in that institution:

"Ten years later things remained exactly as they were. And it happened again."

Nor was this the only pot-shot taken at the Nationalist Party, which has been in power throughout the  decade in question.

"There was a politician who once said: 'he who doesn't fight corruption is himself corrupt", he added: a subliminal allusion to former Prime Minister Eddie Fenech Adami, who had built his pivotal 1987 campaign precisely on the fight against Labour corruption.

It was but one of several nuanced (and rather rehearsed) moments in which this apparent reversal of roles was heavily underscored by today's Labour leader,  who variously evoked images of Old PN to bolster his claims of a 'new movement of progressives and liberals'.

 Cini in fact closed off her interview with a plug for the newly launched book on Joseph Muscat: entitled 'The Malta I Want to Live In' and authored by former Nationalist candidate Cyrus Engerer. This gave Muscat the opportunity not only to stress that his "ideal Malta" is when one in which political partisanship takes a back seat... but also to publicly praise Engerer - present among the Labour delegates - as "one of several people who used to militate against us in the past, but who is now part of the Labour family."

This proved to be a recurring theme throughout the Qrendi stop. Taking his cue from an earlier question concerning the two parties' rival tablet proposals in the education sector, Muscat reflected on 'new technologies' which are changing the way we do politics, not just in Malta but across the globe.

In this sense, he said, the "Malta he wants to live in" is already here: thanks to information technology and a growing sense of connectedness to the wider world, newer generations of voters no longer vote according to ancestral political allegiances.

Many of the proposals floated in Qrendi today were rooted in Muscat's repeated claim that a new Labour government would attempt to harness this newfound sense of political indendence, using the same new technology to reach out to people who, "regardless of political colour",  may not wish to actively participate in politics, yet have a lot to offer.

Here he reiterated his intention to introduce an online mechanism whereby nominations to public boards and committees are somehow selected (or at least screened) by members of the public.

"The days are over  when a government feels safe because it installed the people it wanted to all the important boards," he said... adding, to a burst of applause, that with such a mechanism in place,  people would think twice of taking commissions for such things as fuel procurement.

Disappointingly, however - and in sharp cotrast to other, less tantalising electoral promises such as revisions to the tax regime governing small businesses, which were explained in great detail - he gave no indication of what form this online voting mechanism would actualy take, or how the voting system  (if any) would be implemented.

Similarly, Muscat suggested an online forum whereby amendments to laws tabled in Parliament would be uploaded for public consumption, with their feedback taken on board by MPs in drafting the final law. Again, there was no indication of how this would work in practice.

On other issues, details were more forthcoming. Addressing a predominantly male crowd whose average age couldn't have been below 50, many of the explanations were carefully tailored to address concerns of a possible pensions crisis in the future.

By increasing female participation in the Labour market through such measures as free childcare, Muscat claimed that government would create new opportunities for women, inrease its own revenue and in this way, make sure there will be enough money  to fund future pension schemes.

Likewise, by reducing the tax burden on smaller businesses, government would be laying foundations for secure pensions... among several variations of the same motif.

For the most part the Qrendi crowd responded warmly, but it remains uncertain if either Muscat or anyone else noticed a tiny paradox at work. For despite all the talk of reaching across the frontier and putting an end to political partisanship, they seemed to cheer conspicuously louder at the partisan barbs and pot-shots, than at any of the proposals themselves.