SETTING PROGRESS AND CHANGE IN PERSPECTIVE

What thinking voter looking at what Gibraltar is today compared to what it was in 1996, will not readily acknowledge the huge social and economic prosperity achieved under the GSD Government led by Peter Caruana? If so, why would they vote for 'change'?

In spite of an international financial and economic crisis across the globe, the GSD has created the right political and economic conditions that have allowed the Government to invest £millions in infrastructure development, housing, leisure facilities and general social advancement, and Gibraltar is well poised for the remaining part of this and the next Parliament, to further improve people's genuine needs and enhancing the quality of life for all residents in Gibraltar.

Most people will realise that manifesto commitments are for implementation during the course of the full term of a Government and that different projects may need to be prioritized for technical, expediency or, unfortunately, delayed for unforeseen reasons. The last GSD manifesto, like no other ever thought out and produced, has such wealth of information and ambitious commitments, that people can be forgiven for losing patience when projects that are of a particular interest to them are not completed within the initially announced and expected timescale.

Indeed, it is a well known phenomenon in modern prosperous societies that people have very high expectations of their governments. The same is true here in Gibraltar. The GSD Government has been so successful in wisely investing in our economic and social base, that it is not surprising perhaps that some people may perceive the Government as having a bottomless pit of money. In doing so we fail to appreciate the realities outside Gibraltar where the rest of the World is still suffering from the worst economic recession since the Great Depression - not to mention the plight of the Third World. Our political system of adversarial politics also fuels this attitude.

The GSLP Opposition, unlike what we see in other Western democracies, never puts a constructive perspective or solution to the main challenges faced by Gibraltar at a local and international level. They simply fuel every dispute or incident in their desperate bid to make 'political capital'. In other words, 'the means justifies the end.' Hence, when projects that the Opposition themselves do not have as a manifesto commitment appear to take longer than expected to complete or people complain, they take on board every grievance of every disaffected individual or collective as if grave human rights violations had been committed by the GSD Government. The objective being to undermine and create discontent, even if it means, as we have recently experienced, frightening and confusing vulnerable elderly citizens that there is no money in the fund to pay Community Care.

When the GSD Government achieves an unprecedented historical agreement with Britain and Spain that reasserts Gibraltar as an equal interlocutor designed to diffuse tensions and improve regional co-operation, at the first sign of an incident the Opposition try to expose the deal as meaningless, and systematically fuel every incident to pamper anti-Spanish sentiment.

It is not surprising that at the last general election campaign the GSLP attempted to put a smoke screen to the abysmal record of the last GSLP Government i.e. the fast launch activity, the culture that this generated among our youth, the elimination of all apprenticeship schemes and the damage inflicted to Gibraltar's international reputation. The political objective and hope is that the new generation of young voters would stay ignorant of the past and that the rest of the electorate would develop amnesia. But the reality is that even when the electorate desire 'change', they will invariably not vote change for the sake of change. Electing a government and Chief Minister is also about trust and who people trust with their future.

It is crystal clear that the GSLP Opposition is likely to tell the people of Gibraltar that the forthcoming election is about 'time for change'.

The question is, 'does the GSLP offer real change?' Joe Bossano will either lead the GSLP at the next election, or if he does not, he will be in the election line up and therefore may remain de facto leader of the party. That can hardly be considered 'change'. The alternative appears to be a GSLP led by Fabian Picardo and thinking voters will ask themselves when the time comes, can Picardo be trusted with the huge responsibility of governing Gibraltar? The same question will be asked of Peter Caruana who will have had a 16 year track-record behind him.

This newspaper has no doubt, despite the Opinion Polls, that at the next election a sufficient number of Gibraltarians will maintain their trust in Peter Caruana to lead Gibraltar and that people will continue to follow him and his experienced and broadly based GSD team.

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