Right from the outset we have to make it crystal clear that favouritism and cronyism is just not on in any way, shape or form from any government whatever its political stripe.
But as evidence suggesting that the last election and its huge electoral margin won by the incumbent Labour Party mounts, it is beginning to look more and more as though the last election, like in so many election past, had been bought to some extent with the dishing out of favours and jobs so typical of the clientelism politics that this country suffers from so direly.
It must, however, be said that it was this government that had promised to do things so differently back in 2013. Back then the mantra was 'meritocracy not cronyism', and that it was to be all about 'what you know and not who you know'.
This government was in 2013 elected on a platform of meritocracy but as soon as it assumed power that mantra appears to have been thrown out the window. In fact, one would be hard-pressed to even find the word 'meritocracy' having been mentioned by any Labour politician in the 2017 election – the word appears to have been scrubbed from the vernacular after it had served its purpose so well back in 2013.
There are absolutely no excuses to be made for those leading Nationalist exponents who, when they were in government, recommended people for jobs within Wasteserv, as emails published in the media over recent days have shown.
Now the fact that the Nationalist Party had never campaigned quite as assiduously as the Labour Party had from the meritocracy soapbox does not mean it should not be held to the same standard, of course it should.
This latest case of interference by politicians and their yes men in the employment practices of a state entity is not on by any stretch of the imagination but the fact of the matter is that, as the adage goes, those who live in glass houses should not throw stones.
And while we are not in a position to go into all the pre-electoral favours dished out by the Nationalist Party back when it had enjoyed the power of incumbency, there is ample evidence to suggest jobs and promotions were dished out by the government left, right and centre in the lead-up to the 2017 general election.
Here are a few cases in point. A recent parliamentary question revealed that the Water Services Corporation had hired over 220 people in the run-up to the 2017 general election and that they were taken on board between 1 March 2017 and 3 June 2017.
PN MP Chris Said has alleged with this newsroom that in the few months leading up to the election the government dished out around 1,000 'more secure' public sector jobs to people who were already employed in the private sector. Hundreds of jobs were allegedly given out in Gozo in particular, which had been an electoral battleground and which was eventually claimed by Labour.
Other reports have suggested that a third of the army, over 400 soldiers, had been promoted ahead of the election, while other reports have suggested similar promotions within the police force and elsewhere in the civil service.
We are also certain the numbers of positions of trust within the government have also increased substantially between the last and the current legislature.
This kind of unbridled electoral behaviour must no longer be given any quarter but then again it appears that there are many in this country – politicians and voters alike - who like things just as they are.
It's high time that the way politics are done is cleaned up and the way that both parties seek to buy elections, and holding them accountable for those actions, would be a great starting point.
from The Malta Independent http://ift.tt/2F4IZxQ
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