Two addresses, not one bold proposal in sight

Though this new year’s celebrations already feel like a distant memory in this crowded news cycle, the New Year addresses of political party leaders certainly shouldn’t be classified in the same category.

While they cannot be considered as official declarations of intent by either party, these annual messages to the general public provide a glimpse of whatever that party believes people want to hear most while they’re busy unwinding and dwelling on their hopes and dreams for the new year.

In this year’s addresses from Prime Minister Robert Abela and Opposition Leader Alex Borg, we heard a lot of promises, some tangible proposals which could mitigate pressing social issues, and not one single proposal which directly addresses the deeper roots which spawn those social issues in the first place.

To better understand the undertones of these lofty declarations to the general public, we deconstructed each statement and compared it with each party’s current positions.

Our goal was to answer two important questions: what does this message say about each party leader’s priorities, and what does it imply for the rest of us?

From Wild West to Mediterannean paradise?

In a spectacle that would make Kim Jong-Un weep with envy, the Prime Minister’s New Year address begins with a rendition of Malta’s national anthem that features a whole set up scene involving a priest and an anxious, young child who is about to sing the anthem.

After this exploitative, cringeworthy scene comes to an end, we are greeted by a beaming Prime Minister, filming his address straight from Manoel island – “a place with a beautiful history and an even brighter future”.

In actual fact, Manoel Island’s history is anything but beautiful, and its future is far from assured.

While the Prime Minister’s pitch frames the government’s commitment to “reclaim” Manoel Island, Fort Campbell, and White Rocks and “safeguard” these sites from overdevelopment, this piecemeal approach to restoring the environment’s integrity attempts to mask the government’s chronic inability to stand up to rogue developers.

Abela then highlights three of his administration’s most significant objectives from its Vision 2050 strategy document: placing Malta among the top 10 countries in the world for human development, among the top five for levels of life satisfaction within the EU, and ensuring family incomes in Malta exceed EU averages by a third.

Besides the known pattern of the government releasing strategy documents that it does not intend to follow up on, the reality is that the government’s track record with corruption, the environment, and the country’s infrastructure simply does not inspire confidence that those nation-shifting changes will be achievable in such a short span of time.

Before assuring the nation that his government “will work even harder in the years ahead”, Abela rattles off a list of projects which the government wants to either start or finish by the end of 2026, including the construction of a mental health hospital that’s been promised for the past eight years, a 300-bed hospital for the elderly at San Vinċenz, the land reclamation white elephant, and “progress on the electrification of the motor-racing track at Ħal Far”, which is set to cost taxpayers a total of €78 million.

All in all, what Abela’s list of projects really does is promise listeners that he is willing to spend their money on specific projects which target a demographic’s particular needs but falls short of providing a real solution to deep-rooted problems like widespread corruption and a broken planning system.

Buzzwords just aren’t going to cut it

Nobody can say that Opposition Leader Alex Borg isn’t trying to play the hand he’s been dealt as the fourth leader of the Nationalist Party since it was voted out of government in 2013.

The question is whether the message has been tuned finely enough to come across to the electorate in what is expected to be an election-focused year.

A common tactic in every opposition party’s playbook is to align its messaging with public dissatisfaction, generally with the aim of securing more popularity among unhappy voters and cementing the impression that, unlike the government, the party is not separate from the general public – it stands alongside it, understands its grievances, and shares them.

The effort to come across as ‘one of us’ was evident in the Opposition Leader’s address.

This is particularly significant because of another emerging thread in Alex Borg’s pitch to voters: “the future of our country…a future we must build together, without divisions between us.”

Although it would be somewhat unfair to damn Borg by association, his attempt to appeal to a broad church and give the impression that the Nationalist Party wishes to move past an era of “fanfare” and “insults” carries unmistakable echoes of disgraced former Prime Minister Joseph Muscat’s campaign as then Opposition Leader.

The reality is that even if Borg seriously intends to turn the PN into a technocratic, policy-centred party that steers away from playing dirty, it will hardly have any choice when it is facing an opponent who’s mastered the abuse of the power of incumbency to shore up votes.

Ironically, Borg’s efforts to appeal to moderate voters who do not like partisan politics come across as detached from reality. Whether Borg likes it or not, the Labour Party is willing and able to go to great lengths to remain in power, continuously targeting its critics as part of its everyday operations.

Rather than making hollow calls for ‘positive’ politics, a combative approach that shows the public it is a force to rally behind would prove Borg can handle the constant pressure of a toxic political atmosphere.

The real test of Borg’s mettle as a leader will come when all eyes will be on his party to deliver a robust master plan for the country’s problems that stands out above what the government is willing to offer.

While Borg’s speeches to date offered a sample of how the party plans to deal with hot button issues like affordable housing, low wages, and soaring cost of living, most of the solutions he mentioned publicly amount to specific targeted measures rather than serious policy commitments which the public can immediately rally behind.

Whether the new leader dares to take the party in a more radical direction than his predecessors remains to be seen.