Last Sunday I had the privilege to be present at the Dar Centrali while Simon Busuttil outlined his view of how he wants to achieve good governance in this beautiful country of ours. His ultimate aim is to restore trust in politics (link: http://bit.ly/GGD15-EN). I say privilege because I wholeheartedly believe that this is one of the most important documents that the Partit Nazzjonalista, or any other party for that matter, has produced over the lat few years.
Since I can remember I was always passionate about two things in my life. Politics and sports. Way back when I was just 17 years old I joined the committee of Msida St. Joseph Football Club and just a few months later I started helping out in Partit Nazzjonalista. From that young age I could immediately sense that people’s perspective on both things isn’t as positive as I wanted it to be. I always used to here comments and whispers that people involved in either football or politics are dirty, corrupt, biased and always looking to fatten their own pockets. Words which I hated to hear and even more to be associated with.
In the end of the day I pride myself to be genuine, to be clean and to be fair. In over ten years in football I never earned 1c, not one single cent! Be it honestly or dishonestly, whatever I did for the game I did it because I loved the game. Not only that, over the 10 years I calculated that I have spent thousands however I am not counting because I did it because I was passionate about what I was doing. Today that is a closed (or shall I say ajar?) chapter of my life and I do not regret anything I did for the beautiful game of football.
Over the last 5 years I have dedicated myself thoroughly to the betterment of our society. I know that politics is the best tool to utilise to be able to help those around us, to be able to make a difference and to be able to influence a positive change to our country. Having said that, the reputation politics currently have isn’t the one that I want it to have. You hear people say that they don’t trust politicians, that they don’t trust political parties or else even though they vote, they still don’t believe that they are voting for the best people to run the country.
Some even tell you that they choose the lesser of two evils. Such words hurt, it hurts however we can’t say that such claims are unfounded. This reputation is a result of various issues on many years and mostly fuelled by the heinous abuse of power we’ve seen over the last months.
Today thanks to Simon Busuttil we can finally look forward to a future where politicians aren’t frowned upon each time they knock someone’s door. They aren’t immediately labelled as dirty just because they affiliate themselves with a political party.
In the end of the day I am in politics because I want to make a difference. I, together with the party I form part of, believe that if we’re in government we can legislate fairly and create new industries to be able to have better paying jobs. I want to be part of something good, positive, inspiring. I don’t want to be associated with something corrupt. If I ever feel that I’m part of something poisonous, something destructive, I will immediately resign all my roles and focus all my energy or my own things.
Simon Busuttil presented us an opportunity. He came up with a mater plan on how we can have a clean environment and once and for all we can clean the name politicians have and we can honestly start choosing between political parties and parliamentarians based on their credentials and not based on who will bend the least.
We can now all look forward to the next General Election and when Simon Busuttil takes the oath of Prime Minister we can start a new chapter in the history of this country. The chapter of accountability, the chapter of politics without a heavy shadow, the chapter where decisions will not be doubted. Thank you Simon for giving Malta the fresh of breath air that we all needed.
