On Thursday the Presidency will officially be handed over to George Vella, and incumbent Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca will step down from the country's helm after her five-year term in office.
And while most former Presidents tend to slip into a sort of semi-oblivion after leaving, far be it from Coleiro Preca to follow suit. She has already made some of her post-Presidential intentions known but much more will remain to be seen of how she will continue to foster many of the values and concepts she has instilled into the Presidency and society itself.
Every President of the Republic has brought his or her own special qualities to the Presidency. And what Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca was, and what was evident from even before day one of her term, was that she was a people's President - of the people and for the people.
And she assumed that mantle quite happily, having moved to the Presidency from her previous position and family and social solidarity minister. And what she did, it seems, as we have not yet read her recent biography, was to have dovetailed her previous position into her new one quite perfectly.
And it was her unending love for society, and for children in particular, that really shone through in everything she did.
This was reflected in her establishment of the President's Foundation for the Wellbeing of Society, a nongovernmental organisation that she heads and which has done so much wonderful work since she set it up in 2014.
This was reflected in the way that the annual l-Istrina fundraiser for the Malta Community Chest Fund continued to set record after record under her watch.
This was reflected in how in 2016 she legitimised the MCCF, its funding and expenses by turning it into a foundation and holding its first ever Annual General Meeting, where the Foundation's fully audited statement of income was presented to shareholders - all those Maltese and Gozitan who have donated money and contributed to the Foundation. The President's thinking was that those who donate have a right to know how their funds are being spent, and she was spot on.
Her unending love for society was also reflected in the fact that, just this week, the Foundation posted its accounts showing that the MCCF disbursed a total of €11.85 million during 2018, 54% more than in 2017, and helping more than 16,000 people in the process.
That is not to say that there were not the sore points over the last five years as well. The Paqpaqli accident, and its eventual fallout, was surely one of them. And she also continued the age-old tradition of rubber-stamping laws into force that she did not fully believe in or agree with. And she continued rubberstamping suspicious government property transfers, such as the Old Minty Street deal for example.
Such has been the burden of every President so far. Hopefully matters will change somewhere at some point down the road, perhaps with changes being envisaged by the supposedly upcoming constitutional convention the Prime Minister appears intent on convening.
Children have enjoyed a special and permanent place in this President's heart, as have other burning issues such as food justice, heath and gender violence. The list goes on and on and on.
But what the list does not include is the effect that the Presidency has had on her. In an opinion piece in today's issue, the President speaks of how much she has learned from we the people, from children and even from those who have criticised her.
She thanks the children for teaching so many lessons, not least of which was how they simply want us to respect one another, that they do not want conflict and that they want our country to give them peace of mind. And that is certainly a lesson that every politician needs to learn.
Your Excellency, we in turn thank you for what you have done for the nation, and we wish you well in every one of your future endeavours. After all, how could we not when we can rest assured that any such endeavour will undoubtedly be for the benefit of society as a whole?
from The Malta Independent https://ift.tt/2U7dQ8B
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