‘It’s the economy, stupid’
behind the banging and yelling at the Joseph muscat show of support outside court last week, an important point was made.
“i used to get a €570 [monthly] pension; now i make over €900,” one demonstrator who showed up in Valletta last week said of muscat.
“i think he’s innocent, and even if he isn’t... he lifted me off the ground.”
Commentators, including Times of Malta, often highlight the distractions created by those in power to keep the populace distracted.
We often forget, however, that the very first thing rulers must do to keep people happy is to ensure they do not go hungry.
To paraphrase the roman poet Juvenal, it is bread first, circuses second.
When muscat rose to power in 2013, malta’s GDP per capita was 13 percentage points below the eU average. The economy was growing at just one per cent a year. energy prices were higher than they are now, 11 years later.
Those who crassly voiced their support for muscat last week did so because, during his time in power, that story of economic stagnation was reversed.
Our GDP per capita is now higher than the eU average.
The economy’s rate of growth is significantly outpacing that of our peers.
expendable income, employment and social welfare provisions have all increased.
malta's economy might be built on fragile foundations but it has, no doubt, grown.
and while the gap between rich and poor continues to widen, especially amid the worrying rates of inflation, there is no doubt that those at the bottom of the ladder are better off now than they were back then.
The magisterial inquiry into the Vitals deal found too many problems with that deal.
it was a complex structure designed to put money earmarked for our health sector into certain people’s pockets.
No story of economic success can flush away the grave implications of a state-sponsored fraud of this scale.
Yet, it would be myopic to focus solely on the failings of muscat and his government.
if we are to move forward, as a country, we must try to understand the dynamics that led to that government’s worst representatives acting like suited pirates, looting public coffers at their pleasure.
Those who pawned off state assets in exchange for their pieces of silver were able to do so because they allowed the rest of us to eat the crumbs off their table.
For a good number of maltese people, that itself was enough. enough, even, to justify any subsequent form of malfeasance because those crumbs were more than they ever had before.
bernard Grech – and anyone else who aspires to political power in tomorrow's malta – would do well to keep that in mind when they campaign to win over voters.
For those with dark memories of austerity, no day can be as black as those when they struggled to put food on the table.
People will put up with thieves if they believe only the rogues will toss coins into their caps.
and with polls showing yet another resounding labour Party victory in the european Parliament elections on Saturday, it is evident that money in people’s pockets is what matters most, even if our own survey showed that corruption is now the biggest concern.
after all, to paraphrase a somewhat more contemporary political thinker: it’s the economy, stupid.