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Valerie Borg
Valletta
Dear Lawrence
There are a variety of reasons why I admire the leader of the Opposition and no, carrying the torch for him as the English media insinuated some years ago, is not one of them. Before one could say the words ‘Jack Frost,’ Dr Alfred Sant, the same person pronounced to have made a pact with the devil to win the election of ’96, invited the newly elected leader of the Nationalist Party and future Prime Minister to the ‘Glass house’ in Hamrun.
It was Dr Alfred Sant himself, criticised by many for his lack of charisma who performed so noble a gesture that the Nationalists should learn something from. One is also obliged to note that Lawrence Gonzi accepted this invitation – something the arrogant Fenech Adami would not have done in a million years. This deed then on Dr Sant’s part proved his sense of being a person of honourable disposition, treating his adversaries as if they were his soul mates. Although I doubt it – never the less I hope for it – that this shaking of hands at the ‘glass house’ in Hamrun will remain amongst us all in years to come, the sense of performing justice for all the Maltese although the opinions and strategies of two people who indulged in shaking hands are very different from each other. In all sincerity and I certainly do not need to go to some fortune teller to confirm what I see, I for one cannot for the life of me see Dr Lawrence Gonzi take a different route from the one the PN has taken for the last 17 years they have been in government. Old habits die hard. The only solution to the most difficult problems in society and this country today is character. If there is no character or if it is lost like when Fenech Adami succeeded the late Borg Oliver and even now that we will be living minus his arrogant dictatorship, their right wing political strategy will remain as it always was.
In all probability the man with the boy next door looks will follow the very old Testament that Eddie Fenech Adami campaigned for because he has to, whether he likes it or not, Lawrence Gonzi has another four years fulfilling the electoral promises that Eddie Fench Adami made.
One specific way we can look at things with Lawrence Gonzi the man at the helm is that the PN have merely switched seats on the Titanic, because the abused ship called ‘Malta’ is going to drown anyway.
In four years time it will probably be Lawrence Gonzi’s turn to ask us to forgive him because he would have followed the path of Fenech Adami and his cronies. The PN can choose a new leader every year. What equals the PN is a strategy a million ways different from that of the Labour Party – Right wing politics this time from Lawrence Gonzi who years ago poked fun at the man who shook hands with him in the “Glass house” by his statement about Sicilian hairdressers.
Dear Lawrence, when you told Dr Alfred Sant during this two year stint as Prime Minister “Min iwieghed u ma jwettaqx huwa gvern li ma tistax tafdah,” you must have had a premonition of things to come. With you at the helm, things will still be cascading downwards because your strategies: the way you look at things, the thinking a lot, speaking a lot, and backing off at the time of doing will not get us anywhere. This is what happened with the White Paper which would have helped many a battered wife to stand on her own two feet, but remained shelved as did a hundred other projects. With you the man at the helm, we’ll still be going on a downhill slope. ‘Lil min tafu tistaqsix ghalih!’
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