After spending 10 years calling PN negative, Labour had to find a new mantra.
So they came up with this on their latest billboard: “Bernard is the face of the past”.
As usual with Labour, the opposite is true.
Bernard Grech only entered politics a year and a half ago.
He’s actually the freshest Prime Ministerial candidate in Maltese history. No party leader has ever had less time to adapt from a life of no politics to a general election campaign as the prime candidate.
So to give credence to their lie, Labour accompanied the billboard with a number of other faces.
But the faces they chose prove just how weak their argument is.
Out of nine men, five were never in a PN Cabinet, one was never a minister, and one is… a journalist who has no involvement in the PN!
So the argument that Bernard Grech is a man from the past seems to be premised on the idea that out of 70+ candidates, PN’s lineup includes two faces from previous Nationalist administrations.
But beyond the weakness of the argument, it’s important to understand why Robert Abela wants to condition Bernard Grech into not talking about the past.
And that’s because Robert Abela fully intends to repeat the past mistakes of his party.
This billboard is already a case in point. Putting a journalist’s face on a party billboard to turn them into a political target is just what Labour did in 2017 with Daphne Caruana Galizia.
The Daphne Caruana Galizia inquiry made it clear that such actions were part of the climate that led to her assassination.
But Robert Abela – who fought tooth and nail against having a public inquiry and against adopting the inquiry’s conclusions – has no intention of learning from the past.
He wants everybody to forget what happened, which is why he took over TVM, why he killed political discussion, and why he wants to obliterate the Opposition.
Don’t let him win.
Vote him out.