While they will audit, we will act
By Fabian Picardo, Leader of the GSLP
At this election, the GSLP Liberals I lead have worked harder, with more focus and more energy than ever before to prove that the GSLP Liberals are the only choice for Government in Gibraltar at this election.
Three weeks into the election campaign, with one week to go, two themes from the 2019 election have made their own way back into the political conversation: in 2023, as in 2019, NOW is NOT the time for a change; and the GSD is today the party of both Novices AND Has-beens, in one political grouping.
We have spent the last four years going from crisis to crisis and rising to the challenge every time. Covid-19, Brexit, the Grace I, the OS35, the Gas Venus and the water shortage that followed the fire in the tunnel. We have gone from crisis to crisis, yet none of them have been of this community’s own making.
The last thing Gibraltar needs now is to vote a homegrown crisis upon itself, a crisis of energy and focus. a crisis of experience and conviction. A crisis spelt GSD. The GSD’s proposition is one of review and audit, not action. A vote for the GSD is a vote for a party that, for one, also believes the Civil Service is bloated.
While they review, we are ready; while they dither, we will do; and while they audit, we will act.
It is clear to me, however, that at this election, the GSLP Liberals are not in a contest with the GSD – THEY have FAILED to present a credible alternative for government.
No, I believe that the GSLP Liberals are in a ‘contest’ with those who believe the time has come to punish the GSLP Liberals with a protest vote. It is a vote that believes that any change is better than another four years of a GSLP Liberal Government, at any cost. To those of you who are of that view, but who have witnessed the energy with which we have presented our case, the incredibly energetic and dynamic change that we have brought to the electorate and who understand the importance of having the most experienced and energetic team in office at this time, I say this: we know that much is far from perfect in Gibraltar today, but it is also undeniably true that Gibraltar is simply unrecognisable from what it was in 2011 because of everything we have done, and everything we have achieved, regardless of the many challenges.
To that voter who is ready to punish, ‘no matter the consequence’, I ask you to take pause.
No one else in the election can guarantee a safe and secure deal on our future relationship with the EU. No one, nowhere, has ever come close to matching the unimaginable revolution in education that this team has delivered. We’ve built more affordable homes in 12 years, despite the Pandemic parliament, than the others ever even dared to DREAM they could build in 16 years! Worse still, their defence for failing to do their bit, has been to have the shocking disrespect of calling the thing that killed 100 of our own ‘an excuse’.
The only smokescreen in politics today is the one behind which the GSD, under Mr Azopardi, has hidden, doing nothing, offering nothing, being invisible for four years. At least with Daniel Feetham there was fire in the belly of at least one of them! They are, I believe, the fraud on the electorate. They are the ones who used ‘the Covid excuse’ as a reason to do even less. Where have they been since the election was called? We have given everything we had to EARN our vote on 12 October. We take no one for granted and we will leave NO ONE behind.
We have not come this far to only come this far. We got the job done, no matter what the job was. On 12 October, don’t vote for another crisis spelt GSD. Don’t punish yourself or this community with a protest vote. On 12 October, Vote all ten GSLP Liberal candidates so that we can continue to get the job done. On 12 October, Keep Gibraltar Safe.
