Opinion • February 8 2004

Dear Prime Minister-to-be

Harry Vassallo looks to the future and makes a plea to the next PM

I don't envy you. Unlike your predecessor you come to office with no message of liberation, you do not inherit an economy craving release, you have no store of personal credit for having resisted victimisation. You will have to allow the glory of EU accession to your predecessor and stand all the pain yourself.
Nobody will thank you for avoiding disaster. Nobody will be grateful for a return to normal. Your greatest achievement is likely to go unnoticed. Make sure you have the stomach to live without the hope of reward.
I wish you luck. You're going to need it and so are we. Perhaps it is in your favour that the country is so low down. We are all expecting the worst, perhaps more than we need to be. If you can turn that around, you might stand a chance.
No quick fixes please. I don't think that the country can take another disappointment. And no promises of magic either. Whoever you are, your credit is low and you cannot afford to lose any more.
What we need is a plan, a strategy: short, medium and longterm targets we can all recognise. Of course it would have to be changed according to contingencies but we all need a basic framework, a common project. Remember that Malta is a micro-state: not all the latest economic fads can be followed in safety.
You need to make some enemies. Kissing everybody's behind hasn't worked. Ease up on the workers. They'll be there if they can believe that they are not being taken for a ride. Cut the sabre-rattling and make sure that there are no more scandals. If you see one coming, make sure that you are the one to do the whistleblowing. Dismantle the rackets you know about before they dismantle you. That's where your enemies will come from.
Learn to speak to the opposition. Ignore the seige mentality. It is an occupational hazard to which every opposition is prone and every Maltese government also. Take risks with them. Make it clear that politics is not a fight to the death for you. Don't appear weak but be willing to concede. Make them believe that they could be tomorrow's government. They need to. And believe it yourself.
If you can avoid the omniscience trap, it will be a major victory for you. Claiming you know everything is bad news. You don't know everything. Take advice, listen and bend over backwards to show that you have given weight to the advice of the social partners. Make sure that you do so as often as possble. You will have to contradict them at times. That is when you will need their goodwill most. If you have no credit there, nothing will work.
Recognise the potential of the environment. Incredibly, Malta still has a very rich biodiversity. Conservation is not a cost but an avoidance of unforgiveable waste. Our life quality is everything. We have squandered natural and heritage assets that could have been sustainably exploited for all future time. The losses have been infinite even if they will never appear on public accounts.
We have lost that earning potential forever often for a pittance in a private pocket. We have burdened ourselves with system and remediation costs that threaten to cripple us. This is where you should listen most carefully. You will have to make a paradigm leap here. This will take you ahead of the times and demand the courage to face general incomprehension. Don't depend on the bag of tricks you have learnt so far. Believe that you are still able to learn. Your change in attitude can increase employment and generate real and valuable economic growth.
Try to ignore your experience. Not everyone has a price. If you look for them, you will find priceless people. If you don't believe they exist, you will never see them. If you live in hope of them, there will be more to find.
Forget the next elections. Just concentrate on ensuring that there will be a healthy country to be led. If you can do that, you can be Malta's greatest statesman. Look far into the future. Engineer the next government, whether or not it will be yours. You may be in opposition next time around, make it a decent place to be.
The one thing in your favour is that the country is ripe for real democracy. You can link your name to a great leap forward. You have persuaded the country to share its invaluable sovereignty, now share your own power. Are you great enough to be smaller?
Release the people from the mental straitjacket of the one party government overlying and obliterating parliament and the state. Allow us all ownership of our country's institutions. Harness the energies of the other half of the country. End zero sum politics. Allow us to realise our own full potential. Make us all able to laugh comfortably at the obscene antics of the last 30 years.

Dr Vassallo is Chairperson of Alternattiva Demokratika -
The Green Party www.alternattiva.org.mt