It’s not about the gap

The latest election surveys have been eclipsed by Mark Camilleri Leaks of the hot chats between a sitting MP and a man charged with murder.

The rate of the new cycle is so fast that I doubt whether, in any case, we would have been discussing the narrowing of the gap between PL and PN for much longer.

The repercussions of the Vitals are, in the meantime, serving to unearth a deep web of corrupt practices involving recurring protagonists. The proverbial faeces have hit the rotating cooling device, and at the moment, it would seem that no amount of damage control can do.

The narrowing of the gap does, however, merit analysis. Mainly to emphasise that what is happening and what should be happening in the Republic is not about the gap. It cannot be about the gap.

The danger of focusing on the gap and its narrowing is all about accepting the status quo of the system in which our parties operate. Believing in further narrowing the gap and an eventual overtake by the PN would mean believing in the current system providing a solution to its ills.

Wrong. This is a reminder that the struggle ahead is about much more than the game of alternation in the PLPN system. It is about resetting the system.

It is about new politics, a new vision and a new roadmap. The struggle must be reformative and revolutionary.

It must be constitutional and systemic. It must remain much more significant than any party that depends on maintaining the ground framework to survive.

Reading Roberta Metsola’s speech in Malta this week, I saw what could possibly be a way out of the alternation.

Metsola did not stick simply to highlighting the nation’s woes as any Opposition politician would be expected to do. There was the hint of a roadmap, of an idea for new governance based on accepting a multidimensional political reality.

“I am here to stay” was as cryptic as it was clear. No need to wait for a messiah in the style of former mexxejja (leaders) to lead the flock to the promised land of electoral victory.

Operating within the European dimension of Maltese politics can be just as effective. It can be just as influential. Malta’s political future lies in becoming a supranational concept away from the political leeching of the last decades.

Effective politics will mean awareness of the nation’s global and regional challenges. Being geared for such challenges will also automatically mean transforming national politics through positive change.

Green politics, clean politics. Inspired internationally, applied locally for the benefit of all. There was a touch of solidarity and subsidiarity movements in Metsola’s speech.

Operating in the new multidimensional sphere would also mean resetting the system to break away from the PLPN race to the bottom that has brought us where we are.

It means rehabilitating the institutions. Purging our administration of partisan influences that are toxic danger preventing any form of positive development.

It means regaining confidence in our justice system. It means boosting justice and looking out for its orphans who have long been left waiting on the sidelines.

We live the nightmarish limbo as multiple evidence of political crimes surfaces around us.

In times like this, celebrating the “narrowing of the electoral gap” would be automatic even if we are technically four years away from the next general elections.

We would do well to remember that it is not about the gap. It is about focusing on new politics. About leading towards systemic change. Our future depends on it.