It’s good to see that Salvu Mallia is thinking strategically

Whether he stands on the Nationalist Party ticket or does not, the most important thing is that Salvu Mallia has understood the strategic risks of supporting any small party that will split and dilute the opposition to Muscat’s outfit.

Malta is now dealing with the most corrupt government in living memory, much worse in its corruption than the violent and humans-rights-violating governments led by Dom Mintoff and Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici, because the stakes are now higher and they are playing a game of kickbacks and backhanders that spans continents.

It is staring us in the face.

In this situation, it would be immensely irresponsible to do anything other than get behind the only political force that can defeat Muscat and his gang of thieves and shove them out of power. And this regardless of our personal views about the Nationalist Party leader, the Nationalist Party’s policies and even the Nationalist Party itself.

You would be surprised how many people take this approach already – I am one of them – and the fact that they stopped taking it, because they felt it was safe to do so, was the main factor in the Nationalist Party’s huge defeat at the polls in 2013. No matter the number of in-depth reports, studies, navel-gazing and self-flagellation, that is the real reason.

You could pick it up in conversations all through the five years leading up to the general election. People were no longer scared of Labour, of what Labour would do. And freakily, under the deluge of constant Muscat propaganda, they began to mistrust their own eyes, ears and mind and began to trust Labour, an addled lorry laden with the corrupt and the relics of another era, more than they did the Nationalists.

And so they ended up screaming “I’m In!” and rushing to elect not a political party but a criminal organisation. It can’t happen again. People have to remember that they and their personal piques are not bigger than the common good, than the fate of Malta, than the crucial importance of putting an end to the shocking corruption that is poisoning life in Malta and our reputation elsewhere.

I’m sick of listening to short-sighted people griping, bitching and kvetching about Simon Busuttil, the Nationalists, and how they don’t like them for this or that minor and idiotic reason. Who on earth do they think they are, that they personal complaints are more important that the fate of this island, more important than kicking out the frighteningly corrupt and abusive?

When I hear people get their priorities in a twist like this, I can’t help thinking that maybe corruption isn’t such a big thing with them.