Instead of carrying out a decent election campaign where they present their proposals and debate those put forward by the Labour Party, the Nationalists are resorting to a campaign of lies. They are lying in two ways: by distorting Labour proposals, and by concealing their own where they know that their new policies would be unpopular.
They are fabricating all sorts of lies against the Labour Party. A whispering campaign is going on that Labour would remove social benefits for the unemployed. Another lie is that Labour is considering introducing a tax on second residencies and on unused buildings.
In education, instead of debating with the Labour Party about the best way forward to change the education system to stop more than 40% of our students completing their education without the necessary basic skills in Maltese, English and Mathematics; to ensure that we have effective ways of educating our students in science and technology; to stop being at the bottom of the European heap when it comes to the number of graduates in science and technology; instead of discussing these issues the Nationalists are lying by telling voters that the Labour government intends to remove stipends for University, MCAST and Institute for Tourism Studies (ITS) students. ITS students are being told that we will not allow them to go and work in hotels abroad as part of their studies. All these are lies intended to scare voters away from Labour.
The Nationalists are also lying when they say that the reception class introduced at the beginning of primary education to serve as a transition between kindergarten and primary education is a wasted year, whereby pupils would be made to repeat a year. The best education systems in the world start their primary education at the age of six and seven: a year or two later than the children in Malta and Gozo, who start primary education at the tender age of five. The extra year or two that pupils in other countries like Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Finland enjoy in their primary education allows them to develop their personal and social skills and help them learn without the heavy stress and pressure that we subject our children to.
Countries like Malta, where primary education starts at the age of five, do worse than countries where primary education starts later and where they have the time to progress gently into formal primary education instead of being rushed very young from kindergarten to primary education. Forty per cent of our pupils already fall behind at the age of eight and never recover. They fail in their primary education, fail in their secondary education and leave school at 16 without the necessary skills and competencies to live and work in the 21st century. Why are the Nationalists so keen to shoot down this commitment of Labour to emulate other successful education systems in the world to give our children a new beginning? Starting primary education a year later would help our best students to do better by reducing stress and pressure on them and give new opportunities for those who lag behind to catch up and succeed after enjoying a more solid kindergarten and primary education.
While distorting Labour’s proposal on primary education, the Nationalists say nothing about two policies that they intend to implement if elected again to government. They are saying nothing that they intend to do remove the Junior Lyceum examination. Education officials and schools heads have been told that now is not the right time to mention this policy so it is being carefully hidden from the electorate. There needs to be a good debate about this exam but trying to cheat the electorate by saying nothing is not the way to conduct honest democratic policy making.
Within the Education Ministry there have been discussions about introducing three year contracts for teachers in government schools. Again, not to upset a sizeable part of its core vote, the PN is saying nothing about this policy.
There are other policies that the PN will introduce once re-elected to government, but for the time being it is concealing its real intentions. A new PN government would change the national health system and people would have to start paying for the public medical services they receive. The decision has already been taken, but the PN has decided to hide it from the citizens not to lose votes.
The same goes for decisions that harm the environment. A number of mega-projects have been put on hold not to upset the environmental lobby and the residents living near these projects. Investors have been told behind closed doors that government will give the go-ahead to their projects, but only after the elections so as not to lose votes.
When it comes to analysing PN electoral campaigns you learn more by what they do not say rather than by what they say.