The Language of Tomorrow That Never Comes

Walk into any political gathering in Malta, and you'll hear the same refrain: something important is coming. Not today. Not next week with a specific date. But 'in the coming days.' Or 'in the coming weeks.' It's become the default currency of Maltese political speech — a phrase so common it barely registers anymore. But when you start tracking what actually arrives after these promises, a pattern emerges that should concern anyone paying attention.

Opposition leader Alex Borg has promised that the Nationalist Party will unveil comprehensive mass transport plans 'in the coming days,' alongside proposals for a €5,000 Child Trust Fund and VAT reductions for the catering sector [1]. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Robert Abela has pledged that emergency department expansion works at the National Hospital will begin 'in the coming weeks' [2]. Both statements share an identical structural weakness: they're impossible to hold anyone accountable for because the timeline is infinitely elastic.

The Art of the Perpetual Announcement

What's remarkable isn't that politicians make promises. It's that both sides — government and opposition — have settled on nearly identical language to make them. This isn't accidental. It's a feature, not a bug, of how Maltese politics now operates.

When a politician says something is coming 'in the coming days,' what does that mean exactly? Three days? Ten days? A month? The beauty of the phrase, from a political standpoint, is that it's never technically a lie. 'The coming days' is forever approaching. If pressed weeks later, a spokesperson can claim the announcement is still in 'the coming days' relative to some other reference point. The timeline has no anchor, no accountability mechanism, no moment where you can definitively say: this promise failed.

Compare this to the opposite approach: 'We will unveil mass transport plans on March 15th at 10 AM at Auberge de Castille.' That's a promise you can mark on your calendar. That's something that either happens or doesn't.

Do Voters Know Both Sides Play the Same Game?

Here's where it gets interesting. Most political coverage treats each announcement as a separate story: 'Opposition Promises Transport Plans,' reads one headline; 'Government Announces Hospital Expansion,' reads another. The pattern only becomes visible when you step back and look at the language collectively across both camps over time.

Many Maltese voters probably assume that when their preferred party uses vague timelines, there's a legitimate reason — perhaps political timing, or waiting for technical details to be finalized. What they may not realize is that the opposing party is using the exact same justification to say the exact same thing. It's a mutual understanding, perhaps unspoken, that 'coming days' is acceptable political vocabulary.

But has anyone tracked what 'coming days' announcements actually materialize? That's harder to find. The media moves on to the next announcement, the next 'coming weeks' promise, and the original vague commitment fades into the background noise of the political cycle.

The Hospitality Sector Knows How This Works

The PN's promise of VAT reductions for catering establishments offers a useful case study. This is specific enough to matter to a real constituency — restaurant owners, café operators, workers in the sector. They're waiting to see if this actually happens. Yet the announcement was bundled with other proposals delivered via the same 'coming days' mechanism. Will the VAT reduction come? In the coming days, apparently. Or weeks. Or months. The person making the promise gets to define success, and 'we're still working on the details' is always a viable answer.

The €5,000 Child Trust Fund for newborns is similarly concrete in concept but floating in time. Parents considering this benefit have no way to know when it might actually be available, or whether current political momentum means it's truly coming or merely 'coming.'

A Pattern That Demands Accountability

What's needed is simple: voters should start asking for dates. Real ones. Not 'coming weeks' but 'week of April 20th' or 'by end of June.' When a politician offers vague timeline language, the response should be: 'Thank you, but when exactly?'

The hospital emergency expansion under PM Abela [2] at least has some particularity to it — expansion works are either happening or they're not, and construction timelines leave evidence. But even here, the announcement sidestepped wider healthcare infrastructure concerns, suggesting it might be designed more as a headline than a comprehensive solution.

Both the government and opposition have discovered that 'coming days' allows them to claim momentum, attract media coverage, and maintain flexibility simultaneously. It's politically efficient. It's also corrosive to democratic accountability.

The Maltese political system clearly rewards this language. Until voters start demanding specificity, expect to hear 'coming days' and 'coming weeks' for years to come — while the actual timeline for delivery remains perpetually just beyond the horizon.