A politician’s top priority

Parliament will convene tomorrow after a long hot summer holiday. This time round, our Members of Parliament will meet and make a solemn pledge to the Maltese electorate that in their endeavours to make Malta great again, they will do their best to be honest. Yes, why not? Why can’t politicians across the globe put honesty as their best policy on top of their priority list?

The electorate wants the truth from a politician because let’s face it, everybody knows that some of our politicians do not always want to be honest. So how about starting tomorrow at their first parliamentary sitting? Let’s encourage one and all to focus more on honesty and to try and do their part in a true exemplary fashion.

A serious American research has shown that when politicians consciously stop telling lies, they will have fewer physical ailments (like headaches) and fewer mental health complaints (like symptoms of stress, anxiety, depression).

It is a solid fact that when people are honest, they tend to feel safer and better about their relationships and social interactions. Telling the truth seems to light up a sort of pleasure centre in the brain. Although the choice to lie or be honest is often a choice between two undesirable things, telling the people the truth avoid hurting their innermost feelings. The brutal truth can be painful, yes, but people need to know it if the politician is to improve his/her performance and political career.

At times, however, the compulsion to be honest can put a strain on the relationship between the voter and the politician, but it’s far better and worth it not to fudge the truth. People know by now that some politicians tend to cheat when they are almost certain that they can get away with it (Panama Papers for example). Other politicians tend to take a risk and cheat if they see other colleagues doing it; but they will do it less if we persist in reminding them to be honest over and over again.

The bottom line is that famous saying: “Everybody wants the truth, but nobody wants to be honest... especially certain politicians!” Jos Edmond Zarb Birkirkara