Which amendment is that?

The Electoral Commission decided that Norman Lowell, convicted of racial hatred and sentenced to a two-year jail sentence suspended for four years, is eligible to stand for the EP election:

An Electoral Commission spokesman confirmed that Mr Lowell could stand for the June 6 election and said that the 2007 amendments to the electoral law made it possible for people who were handed down a suspended sentence to be eligible to vote.

Once your name appeared on the electoral register, you were also eligible to contest the election, he added.

The Times erroneously reported yesterday that Mr Lowell is not qualified to take part in the euro parliamentary elections.

That’s when my crap detector went off. In none of the elections held in Malta — general, local and European — are qualifications for voting the same as qualifications for candidature. Which is why in the Constitution, the Local Councils Act and the European Parliament Elections Act these matters are covered by different sections of the law. Thus, for example, members of the Electoral Commission itself are obviously not allowed to stand for election while (obviously) enjoying the right to vote.

Then I dug into whatever legal amendments were enacted in 2007. And, indeed, I did find that Act XXI of 2007 at section 5 amends the Constitution so that a suspended sentence (as opposed to an executed sentence) is no longer a disqualification for standing for election.

There’s only one problem though. The Constitution regulates general elections. For the European Parliament election you’d have to refer to the European Parliament Elections Act which, as I pointed out elsewhere, at section 19(1) still states:

Without prejudice to the provisions of the Act, no person shall be qualified to stand for election as a member of the European Parliament or, if elected, to remain a member thereof if, whether in Malta or in any other Member State -
[...]

(e) he is serving a sentence of imprisonment (by whatever name called) exceeding twelve months imposed on him by a court in a Member State or is under such a sentence of imprisonment the execution of which has been suspended;

The relevant section has not been amended either in 2007 or at any time since the law was enacted. Meaning that a suspended prison sentence, while not disqualifying you from being a candidate in the general election, does not allow you to stand in a European Parliament election.

Now, I’m not a lawyer and I only have access to stuff that’s online. It would be helpful if the Times journalist were to press the Electoral Commission spokesman to quote which was the amendment in question. But you can’t expect a Maltese journalist to show some curiosity and dig a little deeper, can you?

I can’t say I’m terribly unhappy at the probable consequence of this: Norman Lowell taking votes from National Action. But if the law indeed prohibts Lowell to run, it’s truly appalling that honest, law-abiding citizens get struck off the electoral register while, when it comes to candidature, where the criteria should be tighter, a convicted criminal can stand for election.

Ban the BA

This post is about one of my pet gripes: the Malta Broadcasting Authority (BA). It follows hot on the heels of a news item that the BA prevented the Greens from airing a paid-for programme on a private TV station unless balance was provided for by inviting MEP candidates from the other parties.

Jacques points out that no such condition is imposed on Labour and the Nationalists and the progammes they air on their respective stations. That is the case generally, but not always. Which is why I’m not in the least sorry for the Greens because in the past they have been willing beneficiaries of the same bungled BA policies and decisions they are the victims of today.

Indeed, it was in another EP election campaign that Harry Vassallo, then Party chair, and Arnold Cassola, the Party’s MEP candidate, paid a visit to a company which produces biofuel and gave a press conference. NET TV were there and filmed. That evening the station’s head of news exercised his editorial prerogative and cut out the parts showing the Green Party’s top honchos.

The Greens complained to the BA and the BA upheld their request. Harry Vassallo, at his drama queen best, wrote a piece at the time, circumspectly describing what happened as “fascism”. No, not the BA’s “nanny-knows-best” attitude which includes knowing what NET TV viewers want to watch on the TV station they – the viewers – finance with their contributions. No, it was the station’s management deciding that on their property Vassallo and Cassola are of no news value.

(I should add here that, if there’s one thing I hate in political talk it’s liberal use of words like “fascism” and “nazism” because it trivialises what those who really suffered under these ideologies went through. If anyone thinks that being excluded from the media is “fascism” he should, at least, try the mildest of punishment fascism meted out: force-feeding of a good amount of castor oil. The consequence of that would be confinement to the bathroom allowing for some quality time to reflect on the difference.)

The problem here is in what we have failed to update in our Constitution. When it was written it was unthinkable (even for technical reasons) that there would be more than one TV and one radio station let alone that they would be outside the hands of the state. No such excuse existed in the early 1990s when the political decision was taken to introduce pluralism on the air waves.

But instead of amending the Constitution to say that the BA is there to ensure impartiality and proportionate allottment on publically-owned stations we amended the Broadcasting Act interpreting the Constitutional provision (something which is supposed to be the prerogative of the Courts) that the political party stations cancel each other out and impartiality is thus restored.

Even then, as the BA’s upholding the Greens complaint in 2004 shows, the key factor is not the “behemoth” nature of the Nationalist and the Labour Parties (voted to that behemoth status by the electorate, those lousy bastards) but the busybody nature of the BA which not only took liberties in interpreting the Constitutional provision but also the provision in the Broadcasting Act.

What the Greens want is not to fix this dysfunctional system. They did not complain when that dysfunctional system paid them dividends and they wouldn’t mind if the outcome were the same now.

With a little help from our friends

In the wake of the Electoral Commission’s decision to de-register more than 900 non-Maltese EU citizens Labour is offering help (please keep in mind that in the Electoral Commission Labour has representatives):

In another statement, the Labour Party said it was offering those whose name had been struck off the register its services.

The party would be launching an application in court on their behalf for their name to be reinstated in the register. The party said it was also offering its services to non-Maltese EU residents who had been struck off.

All people who had the right to vote should be given that right, the PL said.

Time do change, don’t they? Five years ago Labour, through the Electoral Commission, attempted to strike off the register the names of Maltese nationals. That the Court decided in favour of the voters should have come as no surprise not only in view of the Cassola decision in the previous year but that this time round, with Malta a member of the EU and this being a European election, Labour’s case was even weaker.

What says it all about the Party’s erratic approach is that non-sensical “all people who had the right to vote should be given the right to vote”. If you have something you do not need to have it given to you and possession of a constitutional right is determined by the Court. Not the PM and not the Labour Party.

Religious versus Secular

Ranier Fsadni was commenting on the new President’s decision to include mass in the official programme of his appointment and the subsequent reaction of the media which asked if the President’s decision was wise considering that he’s there to represent all Maltese.

I won’t go into this particular decision. What’s of greater interest to me is the conclusion to Fsadni’s article:

One is a narrowing religious vision to be increasingly found among Maltese Catholics: increasingly sectarian behaviour whose consequence is that, whenever somebody declares his or her Catholicism publicly, others wonder if it is a sectarian gesture rather than the address from which one reaches out to everyone.

The other is a narrow vision of what secularism is. Instead of keeping up with the thinking of leading secular philosophers, like Juergen Habermas, who believe that a 21st-century liberal society should have place for believers who use religious language to engage in the public sphere, regrettably too much of Maltese secular thinking tends to be stuck with nervous complexes like those of unreconstructed 1920s Turkish secularism.

However subtly, Fsadni is placing the blame for the state of affairs on the “secular thinkers”: they’re the ones who think that a public act of attending Mass is “sectarian” and they’re the one whose idea of secularism is some sort of re-hashed Kemalism.

Fsadni’s article come soon after a recent story I commented on about an American priest who, while obviously knowing zilch about Maltese constitutional affairs, was brought over to support the campaign to entrench the right to life from conception.

Let’s go over the facts again because they assume new importance in this context. A pro-life organisation which has regularly claimed that it is not a religious organisation (presumably, to reach out to pro-life non-believers) invites a priest from the developed country that’s been hardest racked by cultural wars to talk in favour of its campaign. Significantly, which metaphor does this priest find handy to describe what he came to speak in favour for? Raising fortifications. Can you imagine anything more sectarian than wall-building?

Or, to keep with the today’s theme, here Rev. Joe Borg in his online column in the Times:

What Christ says flies in the face of the current belief in self and instant gratification. Christ’s message is clearly that the person who wants to live only for himself and exploit all life’s possibilities for personal gain finds that life itself becomes boring and empty because it becomes senseless.

“Self and instant gratification”? I quote Rev. Borg, by the way, not becuase his views are atypical but precisely because he’s the most media-literate and one of the most articulate members of the Maltese clergy.  If I were to look around me I see people reducing whatever they consume be it as a way to cope with the recession, save for their retirement or their children, for the sake of the environment or the Third World … you name it. They might find it gratifying but it’s anything but “self” or “instant”. But caricaturing the “other” is another typical way of creating sectarian divides where none need to be.

We do not need a culture war. But some believers are all out to provoke one. Why they should want to is beyond me because these people always have their way: those who ridicule their faith get arrested, divorce is off the agenda and our law on assisted reproduction will have the Vatican’s nihil obstat written over it. There’s no risk that the prohibition on abortion be repealed? These people still want to provoke and gloat about the fact that they always have it their way so they want the matter entrenched.

Here’s my hunch: some people just love playing persecuted and martyrs, preferably without the blood and the gore. I understand and fully sympathise with people who make sacrifices: whether if it’s for their future, their children, their environment and even if it’s for symbolic and spiritual reasons as many believers will do today. What I don’t understand or find favour with is the people who take pleasure in voluntary self-sacrifice because it sets them apart from others and occasionally meting some of that to unwilling participants. Which, incidentally, has a name: sado-masochism.

The siege mentality

Thanks to Homer, in the West we have two prevailing metaphors for life: one which sees it as a siege, the other as a journey. Needless to say, the former is the prevalent Maltese weltanshauung due, certainly, to the country’s history.

Which, however, also has a seductive power on outsiders. I still remember when in 2000 Scottish Cardinal Thomas Winning spoke in Malta on the invitation of the Cana Movement, saying to his Maltese audience that in Europe pro-gay activists were “pushing for greater power” and “in place of the bombs of 50 years ago you find yourselves bombarded with images and ideas which are utterly alien”. That obviously equated pro-gay activists with Nazi Germany or Fascist Italy, obvious to anyone except to Cardinal Winning who protested misrepresentation.

We have had the siege metaphor used again recently:

American anti-abortion priest Denis Wilde believes Malta should protect its pro-life stance by establishing this firmly in the Constitution.

Fr Wilde, from the pro-life organisation Priests For Life that preaches against abortion and euthanasia, was recently in Malta and said the island should introduce safeguards to avoid the legalisation of abortion.

“You should put your fortresses up to avoid the invasion,” he said, drawing parallels between the fortresses that surrounded the island and the Constitutional amendment, which has long been called for by local pro-life group Gift Of Life.

He stopped at the “drawing paralells” between the fortresses (sic, he must have meant fortifications) and what are the “invaders” a similie for? It was left hanging there in mid-air indicating a man who was either looking out for a soundbite or who’s intellectually very lazy.

Reading on, I thought it was the latter:

Referring to the 1973 Supreme Court judgment which legalised abortion in the US, Fr Wilde said this made it even more important for Maltese not to be complacent and introduce safeguards.

“Right now it looks like abortion will never be legalised in Malta. But a court decision could change everything,” he said, adding that, while courts could bring about changes in the law, the Constitution was much harder to change.

I’m not one of the le ghall-indhil barrani types. In fact, I quite enjoy having foreigners who know next to nothing about Malta comment on our affairs because, inevitably, they make jackasses of themselves and they provide much raw material for this blog to mock them for their provincialism.

The Maltese Constitution is nothing like the US Constitution, the role of the Maltese Constitutional Court is nothing like that of the US Supreme Court. I hate pointing out the obvious but this priest deserves to have it rubbed into his face: Malta is not a federation of states. There’re more to be said about the substantive points of the argument. For example, Roe vs Wade (the 1973 Supreme Court judgement) did not make abortion legal but removed the heavy restrictions which, until then existed in many states’ laws. In Malta the prohibtion is categorical.

On the other hand, we have an example of a country which introduced a prohibition on abortion (stated as a committment, on the part of the state, to protect life from conception) into its constitution: Ireland. The result was unexpected legal complications. Reminding us that at times it pay to view life more like the Odyssey rather than the Iliad.

Neutrality and all that

Jum il-Helsien was the end of something but, sadly, it was the beginning of something else. With foreign military out we patted ourselves on the back, decided that we’re everyone’s best friend and proceeded to proclaim it to the entire world that “we’re neutral”. Neutrality has a very specific meaning in international law but, being the kind of people who’d always and in all things want to be more Catholic than the Pope, we additionally proclaimed ourselves to be non-aligned, eternally free of foreign military bases and promoters of peace and social progress amongst all nations.

Thankfully, EU membership assured that that strain in our foreign policy which considered itself God’s gift to humanity is now relegated to a curious sideshow. Sadly, it lives on and the unbidden, self-appointed peacemaker occasionally still struts on stage in its over-sized boots.

It did so when we sent the highest level non-Arab delegation to the funeral of Yasser Arafat. It did so when, in response to the Mohammed cartoons, the Maltese Foreign Minister called all the Arab ambassador and apologised for something that appeared in a Danish newspaper. It did so when it decided to open an office in the Palestinian Territories, where there is only one Maltese resident, at the same time that it was considering closing our only Scandinavian embassy (not to worry, though: Kevin Borg, winner of the winning the Swedish Idol contest, was appointed “tourism ambassador” to the region).

Here’s an example where our own self-image on the international stage leads to conflated and confused ideas. Evarist Bartolo:

Neutrality is good for us. Not serving as a military, naval and air base for other countries and their alliances is good for us.

That’s a non sequitur. Not to serving as a military base for other countries and their alliances does not imply neutrality as can be attested by many NATO members who have consistently declined to host armies of their allies, France between 1966 and 2009 being the case par excellance. NATO, after all, is a mutual defence alliance. Interestingly, the famous “an attack on one is an attach on all” Article 5 of the Treaty does not even specify any military nature to the assistance to be given in the case of an attack which is why Germany, for years constitutionally prohibited from sending its armies abroad, could still be a member.

Here’s perception being so warped, the historical facts get seriously twisted:

As a state on the southern frontiers of the EU it is also good for the EU and enhances its diversity and flexibility if it has a member state that can build on its reputation as an ideal meeting place for states, cultures and religions in conflict. It is such a pity that in the last five years we have been largely absent from being a protagonist of Mediterranean politics within the EU and within our region.

And then, all peace agreements I can think of — Middle East, the Balkans — were all negotiated and signed in NATO countries because all beligerents seemed to care for were some decent conference facilities. Bartolo’s rebuke about our “absence” is really about the inevitable failure of living to our own unrealistic self-image. Cheer up, I say. If anyone would have wanted you to act as arbiter they would have called.

Belated thoughts on il-Helsien

I know that this is a little belated but it’s only now that I got the opportunity to put down the Ikea catalogue. I do this to make a few points.

First, I think “Freedom Day” is an inaccurate translation of “Jum il-Helsien” whatever your opinion is of the historical significance of the day. “Helsien” in Maltese is more of a verb than a noun. That’s not the only case of poor translation. Other cases are even worse. Think of “Malta hielsa“. Over at the Times they translated it as “free Malta”. There is only one instance where I can think of the word “free” being followed by a proper noun (as opposed to historic instances involving a common noun such as the “Irish Free State” and the “Congo Free State” which, incidentally, are both transliterations from an original language that isn’t English). A “free” which precedes a proper noun is a verb in the imperative (think “Free Mumia”).

Second point is about Labour’s claim that the Nationalist government is celebrating Jum il-Helsien as some sort of second-class national day out of the five we already have. Incidentally, only one person decided to look into the evidence, Anna Mallia. Sadly, Mallia is out to prove the point that the government indeed treats national festivities differently and pumps up the evidence in one case and not in the other.

Read it carefully, keep in mind that the description of the 31 March commemoration has been somewhat shorn of detail and you’ll realise that the only real significant difference is that Independence Day gets a solemn pontifical mass and a symphonic concert to Jum il-Helsien’s traditional regatta. Don’t know about you but I’m with the Laburisti on this one: give me a regatta with the brawls and controversies over two events for over-dressed people.

Just in case you didn’t know there is an agreement reached in 1990 on how national festivities should be celebrated. The date is significant: it followed the lavish 25th anniversary celebration of Independence and the fracas at the 31st March commemoration when the Labour mob for no apparent reason assaulted the Brigadier-Commander of the Armed Forces and threw him into the sea. For close to two decades, under both Labour and Nationalist governments, there were no complaints.

Only now. On the 30th anniversary of Jum il-Helsien. Does anyone remember a similar complaint being raised five years ago on the more significant 25th commemoration? I don’t and in all likelihood there wasn’t any. There is no factual grounds for Muscat’s complaints but there is a cause. For close to ten years Alfred Sant played down the importance of Jum il-Helsien, seeing it as a “Mintoffian” feast, compensation by trying to boost the importance, in Labour’s psyche, of Republic Day. That the incumbent leader has gone back to the ludicrous “torch ceremony” (a throwback to and a reminder of the partisan aspect the 1979 Labour government attached to the feast) is significant.

Third point is about the number of national days. This, together with such issues as the choice of choosing the President of the Republic, have loomed large as matters requiring urgent answers to address the country’s political divisions. Such choices — a President with a party political history, five national days to accommodate all — are not the cause of national divisions (if such a division is to be considered problematic at all). At most they are a symptom. And even if the medical metaphor is to be considered as being accurate, they’re symptoms about as serious as a common cold. Five national days is ludicrous; assuming that agreement on, say, 8th September being a national day and everyone feeling great and “national” about the move is just as ludicrous.

Final point is about debunking historical myths. James Debono on his blog engages in the exercise specifically the significance of the “liberation” by Count Roger the Norman in 1099, the nation-building significance of the Great Siege of 1565. Unfortunately, Debono is, as usual, partial and goes on to say that “Freedom Day” was when “when Maltese economy ceased to be dependent on the military expenditure of other powers and closed the military base enabling Malta to develop friendly ties with its southern neighbours”.

Malta had friendly ties with Libya (that’s our only “southern neighbour” — let’s just drop the euphemisms, shall we?) before 1979. Actually, they sharply deteriorated the following year over the Saipem-II incident.

But more importantly, the Maltese economy did not cease to be dependent on foreign military expenditure in 1979. The last time we had a reliable, significant report confirming Malta’s dependence on British military expenditure was the Balogh and Seers report of 1955. Between that report and the closure of the military base there was the Suez fiasco (when Britain realised that its days as a global power were over), two massive run-downs in 1958 and 1967, the departure of NATO and the Americans in 1971 and the reduction in British troops during the tense discussions on re-negotiating the Defence Agreement in 1972.

Don’t get me wrong: I think Jum il-Helsien deserves recognition. It deserves that without recourse to spinning Malta’s dependence on foreign military expenditure in 1979 to historical proportions.

The force of inertia

In my last post I said that the opponents of the project to extend St John’s were greatly helped by the fact that they had the force of inertia on their side; in Malta the adherents of any “do nothing” side in whatever cause start with a significant advantage.

Think about this scenario: an NGO which is well-funded and has quite some media savvy, riding on a wave of public support, backed with a petition “signed by thousands” and has some friends (and, possibly, a majority) in the House of Representatives. This time it’s not FAA but Gift of Life (GoL) and their campaign to have the right of life from conception entrenched in the Constitution that I have in mind.

There are, admittedly, reversals which GoL’s campaign suffered that FAA’s did not. First, it was the respective organisation’s sense of timing. GoL foolishly decided to suspend their campaign first for the general election then for the summer; FAA knew that they had to throw all their weight behind their campaign sooner rather then later or they would have had to face the situation of confronting an extensive study with little more than scattered opinions, whether expert or lay.

But in everything else GoL’s campaign was not very different from FAA’s. Yet, this is where their campaign is at:

The Prime Minister remained non-committal on Gift of Life’s proposal to amend the Constitution to protect the right to life from the moment of conception, during a meeting with the organisation yesterday.

Lawrence Gonzi summarised the different arguments being made the organisation’s proposal at a meeting in Castille, where techno music from carnival celebrations below blared in the background.

He stopped short of saying whether he agreed with the constitutional amendment, insisting he did not know what the position of the MPs was. The amendment proposed by Gift of Life would require a two-thirds majority in Parliament.

Dr Gonzi said the criminal code was clear enough in making abortion illegal and that the Constitution already protected the right to life.

He added that there was a debate in the country on the proposal and the path on the subject was still open.

However, the Prime Minister said the issue of when life started had to be addressed during the debate on legislation to regulate in vitro fertilisation, which will be presented during this legislature.

The press was invited for the initial part of the meeting, which continued behind closed doors.

I have no doubt that, if GoL’s proposed amendment to the Constitution were to be presented in the House, it would garner the two-thirds majority it needs easily. But it will not even get to that stage because there is no enthusiasm to get things that far. Intertia wins again. And this time I’m unequivocally happy it did.

Why not a headcount?

I had intended to publish this post some days ago but it turned out to be one of those that cannot be finalised in a single sitting. It was about the political consequences of the St John’s extension project.

I’m in no way qualified to comment on the technicalities of the project except to note that excavations under buildings of importance is not something unheard of elsewhere. Today in the Times it was a letter from architect Alex Torpiano to remind us of one such example (of what other would call a “quarry” or a “bunker”) under the Louvre.

Torpiano also makes some important remarks about the planning process, about the experts whom the FAA is so happy to quote but whose opinions were either conditional or preliminary (and, as Torpiano reminds us, their opinion, is legally, not final). I have one thing to add on the planning aspect of this story. If, as the FAA is telling us, EIAs are “flawed” by their very nature why should these in-depth studies (as opposed to opinions which arer still opinions however expert) be kept part of the planning process?

From the cultural aspect there’s the loss that these tapestries will either not be exhibited properly or in a place so far away from St John’s that their value is completely decontextualised. There are no “neighbouring palazzos” waiting for restoration (or expropriation as Wenzu Mintoff, true socialist that he is, suggested). And Kenneth Zammit-Tabona can put on all of De Bono’s six thinking hats — he might as well put on six pairs of the lateral thinker’s socks — because he will not get very far.

There are the by far more interesting (admittedly to me) political implications of this. The PM is supposed to have withdrawn the project because of the public controversy. That’s not implausible. The opposition to the project was strong for the “do nothing” scenario is always backed by inertia, the strongest force in the universe. But the PM came out of this looking like he feared that the Opposition’s motion would be carried.

I had already posted reasons why this might not happen. The Times reported three MPs who expressed reservations: Jesmond Mugliett, Jeffrey Pullicino-Orlando and Ninu Zammit. In the case of Zammit the information was second hand and referred largely disruptions excavation might cause to the surroundings. In the case of Mugliett it was because he failed “to understand how it (the project) managed to get so much funding when other projects could have been more deserving” — a case of dog-in-the-manger from someone who stills has to get round the idea that you serve in cabinet at the pleasure of the PM. The only one to have substantial objections was Pullicino-Orlando and, then again, he might not have voted in favour of the motion.

The way things turned out the PM has given in to undue influence from Parliament. Alfred Mifsud — not the most politically literate commenter around — claimed that this was a case of a “desirable but rare separation between the roles of the legislative and the executive”. Rather it was the case where the legislative intruded into the workings of the executive, a matter which in the constitutional arrangement exists largely on money matters (and then, on the efficient raising and spending of that money not on what it is spent).

The legislative’s major role is making laws not deliberating on particular instances where the laws it enacts are being applied as they should. And it should be kept in mind that anarchy is not the only state of affairs that’s contrary to the rule of law; so is arbitrariness.

Muscat at the General Conference

“Forget pairing,” Muscat told the government to a round of applause from the Labour delegates, supposedly in reaction to government’s procedural motion limiting votes in the House to one day of the week.

Umm, why the imperative? Who remembers pairing? It was on offer close to a year ago along with the other offer for the post of Speaker. Labour was not interested, Government moved on and Louis Galea will, in all likelihood, be presiding the House until the end of the current legislature. Only two weeks ago, Muscat was saying that there was “no chance of pairing for the time being”. “Forget pairing”? Thanks for reminding us.

That, it seems, was the highlight of Muscat’s speech to the Labour Conference. Or not. The highlight was the electricity tariffs. Well, no: the proposed St John’s museum. Or the road in Ghadira. Or maybe it was the call for Tonio Fenech to resign for having said that the government was not aware of any plans for redundancies at ST.

Maybe it was the banned play Stitching, the reminder that the Nationalist Party is not a liberal party. You’d be forgiven if you thought that, for that matter, neither the Labour Party is a liberal party. After all, during the debate leading to the “seismic changes” to the Party statute the debate was whether it’s a “democratic socialist” or a “social democratic” party. Potato, potatoe, tomato, tomatoe. Anyone spotted the “l” word there?

The transformation might well have taken place yesterday. Muscat said Labour “is the natural choice for progressive and liberals“. Er, whatever happened to the “moderates”? And if you want to hold Tonio Borg as a shining example of what a liberal isn’t it’s helpful to remind that the Foreign Minister’s understanding of “not liberal” is “not governed through a laissez-faire attitude but one where state regulation ensures the protection of those citizens in most need of protection and assistance”. Democratic socialist or social democrat, that would make Muscat even less of a liberal than Borg.

Muscat’s speech then turns to the goodies. There were promises to invest in just about anything that can soak up public money: families, children, women, the self-employed, research, alternative energy. And just in case you were wondering where the money will come from … keep wondering. Because taxes — on labour, on families, on investors — will also go down.

This country is still to learn the difference between policy and a policy objective but this time round Muscat does offer a policy which allows one to dig his teeth in: a mandatory system where those who lose their job benefit from a moratorium on payment lasting a year or two until he finds a new job. Banks often re-negotiate the terms of a loan in the case of people in that situation, after all they’re more interested in collecting their money rather than re-possessing homes. But making it mandatory is sure to raise the risk for a bank lending money to someone from the private sector. And as we know bank will always transfer the risk to the consumer.

Phew. A lengthy post and I’m not sure I’ve covered everything of the “historic” speech. Indeed, in a months time it would be truly historic if anyone managed to rattle off from memory all the points in covered.

Doing it differently

Discussion on the reform of the electoral system have been ongoing for a number of decades with the only outcome being tinkering with that system. Fortunately, the discussion did not derail proper discussion and welcome progress in the way we vote with some radical changes taking place in 1987 and 1990.

Here’s some more being proposed by Joseph Muscat in the wake of the Nationalists’ suggestion that people who will not be around on polling day for the EP election be allowed to vote earlier:

The Labour Party (PL) yesterday proposed that, as from next year, Maltese living abroad should be allowed to vote at their respective embassy on the day before the election.

It also suggested that identification cards should replace the voting document, following their renewal under the scrutiny of the Electoral Commission. The party said voting with ID cards would reduce the chance of abuse and cut costs.

For the European Parliament elections in June, overseas voters wishing to fly to Malta should make their request to the Electoral Commission, which should then make the necessary verifications and pass on the request to the national airline. This would make the process subject to democratic scrutiny, said the party.

Unfortunately, the Times missed out another reform Muscat suggested: “updating” of voting qualifications keeping in mind domicile for fiscal purposed and sectors such as students and people working with international institutions.

Apart from the identity cards issue which is a real shame (identity cards were introduced in the mid-1970s as a safeguard against electoral fraud and these days they are used for everything but) there is one thing in common with all the other proposals: Maltese living abroad.

That is one front on which little progress was made apart from cheap AirMalta flights to vote. Not that attempts were not made to change things but with the paranoia that hung around the Labour Party while it was led by Alfred Sant certainly did not help.

Muscat must have realised that Labour is not exactly popular with expats. Nothing felt so convincing that the people who were flown in to vote last March were statistically representative of this category of voter than Alfred Sant’s (unproven) complaint that only 23% of them were Laburisti. With a Party that promoted insularity and national chauvinism for decades what else can you expect?

Secondly, he must also have realised that Labour already had little room for maneuver following the Cassola case and the Court’s interpretation of the residence requirement, let alone now that Malta is a member of the EU. The amendment Muscat is proposing is an honourable way out: it probably changes nothing of the Court’s interpretation, is something the Nationalists might agree to and to his Party’s supporters something looks like it’s being changed.

Defenestration

Two draft posts were awaiting publication one concerning Jacques’ article in last Sunday’s Indy, the other about Mario Vella’s article in the Times (Vella, we learnt in this article, is Watersbroken’s editor). But the days went by and those two posts which now seem less important.

The articles (and my posts) in question were not related. Jacques’ article was about the appointment of George Abela as Head of State and how Gonzi and Muscat might have arrived at an agreement because it was in their common interest (Muscat might have got a competitor to the Party Leadership out of the way; Gonzi, a competitor for the premiership). Vella’s was that the Nationalists cannot win another election with Gonzi at the helm (don’t ask me why) and that plans were afoot (don’t ask me how) to have him removed.

With the benefit of some distance and some hindsight those two articles are related. They both fail to see that political sunsets in Malta take a long time. Not a country given to political defenstrations the exits of politicians give lie to the otherwise iron rule of a week being a long time in politics. Examples range from Borg-Olivier to Alfred Sant.

Now, a reminder of who Lawrence Gonzi and Joseph Muscat are to their respective Parties. The first has one election behind him (less than a year ago) which he won. The second has his first election ahead of him. He might lose it but can anyone remember a leader of a Maltese political party who quit after losing his first election?

Like Jacques I can’t say I know George Abela. I can infer a few things from his decision to step down as Deputy Party Leader when the Party’s General Conference decided to follow Sant towards a general election, his decision not to contest Sant after the 1998 and 2003 defeats and his strong showing in the 2008 Leadership contest without having an actual foothold in the Party’s General Conference. Abela is obviously someone who doesn’t descend for a fight unless he knows he stands a chance of winning.

So what would bring about Jacques’ hypothetical scenario? Muscat is not risking much until his first general election test. Even if he loses he’s likely to stay on. Two defeats might take him down. And that’s when Abela might decide to give it a try and step in. In 2019 when he’s 69. Ready to take on the leadership of the country in 2024 when he’d be 74. Gonzi, of course, would have aged by as much. And a septuagenerian he’s definitely at risk after having held office uninterruptedly for twenty years.

Same goes, much more forcefully, to Vella’s fantastications. He mocks “GonziPN” while being oblivious to the fact that he’s more than acknowledging the Nationalists’ winning formula last March (and if you don’t believe me think how far a “SantMLP” slogan would have gotten Labour). The Nationalists cannot win another one with Gonzi at the helm? Come on. I would understand the thinking that having won seven out of the last eight elections might make it difficult for the Nationalists to bag the next one but hard to imagine that the man who stood for his first election and saved his party from a defeat which was not unlikely.

A significant event

The proposal to appoint George Abela as President of the Republic has been accepted by the Labour Parliamentary Group … with two dissensions:

Two Labour MPs voted against and 26 in favour as party leader Joseph Muscat won near unanimity within his parliamentary group yesterday over the nomination of George Abela as the next President of the Republic.

The vote was a secret one, held at the end of a heated discussion during which former leader Alfred Sant and former deputy leader George Vella were heard voicing disagreement, sources said.

An MP abstained and five were not present for the debate, being caught up with other commitments.

James Debono is right when he says that George Abela’s elevation only became possible thanks to Alfred Sant. Here’s Debono’s succint analysis:

For the first time since Anthony Mamo Malta will have a President who enjoys the support of the opposition parties. And all this thanks to one man: Alfred Sant. For because of Alfred Sant’s antics Abela gained the status of most favoured Labourite among Nationalists. And Abela’s nomination also serves Muscat well as he tries to detatch [sic] himself from the Sant legacy.

That’s only half the story. What Debono does not mention is that a Louis Galea presidency would have been unpalatable after Fenech-Adami anointed himself Head of State. Add to that the fact that Galea, old political hand that he is, is more useful to the government presiding the House than presiding the Republic and you see — admittedly, with hindsight — why George Abela was a likely choice.

What is truly “aesthetic” in all this is that, in agreeing on Abela, Muscat and Gonzi both spited their predecessors and what they did as leaders of their respective parties. Many have cited the deal as a new start to Maltese politics. That’s not quite accurate. It’s more a coming-of-age event for the two leaders.

A new President

George Abela will be the eighth President of the Republic. A suited appointment since in my view he fulfills are the criteria required to serve as President.

No, it’s not that of his being a “symbol of national unity”. That, incidentally, would be a criterion on which a former Deputy Leader of a political party such as is Abela, is most likely to fail. As I’ve said on other occasions, nowhere does the Constitution impose such a role on the President. If anything can be inferred from that fundamental text it’s that the President is the symbol of the unity of the state in being head of all the branches of government. And “state”, it should be remembered, is not equivocal with “nation”.

My criteria for a good President? First, he has to be capable of signing on the dotted line to make parliamentary acts into laws. That might not be a too high a bar but it’s one of the most important things a President does. More importantly, he might find himself having to sign laws which he may not agree with. In my view, someone who is not ready to sign into law something he disagrees with it or finds objectionable (rather than choosing to resign) should not be considered for the post. Abela, so far, has not made any such claim.

Second, he has to be capable in chairing the Commission of Administration of Justice, one of the few (if not the only) substantial role our President fulfills. There is one minor episode which militates against Abela here. Abela was the lawyer of Mr Justice Depasquale when the latter’s impeachment case was heard by the Commission in 2001.

Mr Justice Depasquale had decided that, as he disagreed with the establishment of the Commission (he said it was prejudial to the independece of the judiciary), he’d absent himself from work indefinitely (which position might have been believed to be principled had the man not decided to fight tooth and nail to retain his salary and all the perks such as his own chauffeur-driven car).

Abela’s defence was not so ludicrous: his argument was, if I remember correctly, that there could be no impeachment because in Malta there is no law, subsidiary to the Constitutional provision, which establishes the mechanism (apologies but it’ll have to be from memory until such time Maltese online media outlets keep proper archives online). One wonders if Abela would take the same line if a similar case was to present itself before him this time as President of the Commission.

Finally, a good President would have to be able to handle a political crisis (a parliamentary political crisis, I hasten to add; which that there is something to be said for the Constitution limiting a President’s election to the members of the House, leaving out of the process people like Cassola). While this might not be stuff of every Presidency we’ve had, the situation does arise once in a while as it did when Agatha Barbara, Pawlu Xuereb and Ugo Mifsud-Bonnici held office.

This is why, I think, a good candidate for President is one with political baggage. Not necessarily a former Minister, not even a former MP, but one who has moved in political circles before, who knows the players and the name of the game well. George Abela definitely fits the bill on this one.

Final verdict: Abela is a good choice for the post.

How to elect a President

Arnold Cassola, the Greens’ chair opines about the election of the President scheduled for April:

What is even worse is that a good number of our elected Presidents had then to face the boycott of the opposition MPs following their election. I cannot imagine a single country of the 27 in the EU treating its Presidents in this way. It is unfortunate that partisanship and divisiveness have held sway for so long in a country where compromise and cooperation are so sorely needed.

Cassola is wrong in the first sentence, right on the second, irrelevant on the third. There was only one President who faced a “social boycott” by the Opposition following his election. That was Censu Tabone in 1989. Cassola is then right in saying that no other EU country would have treated its President that way but then it’s Labour under Mifsud-Bonnici’s leadership we’re talking of here, a period which everyone, whether a supporter of the Party or not, would rather forget.

On the last point the choice of President is hardly the most important decision where compromise and cooperation are needed. What is certainly not needed is transforming the choice into just anyone seeking the limelight. Cassola shouldn’t complain that the PM “clearly sent out a message that the choice of President remains a closed shop reserved to the 69 MPs” when he refused to meet the Greens and listen to their opinion on who should be the next Head of State for constitutional reasons. If the PM gave that message he gave the correct message of what’s in the Constitution, both in its letter and in its spirit.

The Republic is easily grateful

If I’m not mistaken there was once a limit on the number of holders of national decorations. Quite sensibly, first of all to avoid that too many are dished out in any year and second to force some discernment into determining not only who is deserving but the most deserving.

That limitation is gone and this year’s awards, coincing with Republic Days, showed that the Republic is easily grateful for acts that are, not even by a long stretch, ad maiorem res publica gloriam.

The decisions, it seemed, were taken by people who fail to realise that these are national decorations for serving the Republic. That’s different from having a rich and varied public life, having done some outstanding philanthropic work, contributed to Melitensia or having arrived second in the Eurovision Song Contest. The decorations have now been transformed into something that’s a cross between a Premju Papa Giovanni Tlieta u Ghoxrin and a Grammy.

Which is not to say that most of those people decorated have not done worthwhile things in their public careers. It’s the numbers in which these awards are now given and rending thing commonplace that tends to devalue them.

How a few others, however, ended on that list is a mystery. Igor Judge? Having been born in Malta and educated at St Edward’s before heading off to the UK and made name for himself there makes him eligible. Vince Farrugia? “He led the organisation [the GRTU] in a professional manner and worked in the best interest of the small and medium enterprise and the self-employed” — which would should make him the recipient of recognition of the sectorial interests he represents. Not the Republic.

And Ira Losco? I suppose that, if the Brits can have their own Sir Elton John why can’t we have our Ira Losco MQR?

A “non-political” president

Fenech-Adami’s tenure as President of the Republic expires in April next year. One of the most sensible features of our constitution is that to fill the ceremonial and inconsequential post only a resolution of the House, carried by a simple majority, is required. Quite a few other countries which do not elect their head of State through popular sufferage require higher majorities and, in some cases, if the chamber does not agree on a Head of State it is dissolved an elections are called.

And yet, our system still engenders contorversy, significantly, over who gets to fill the post. Sadly, this argument is not about the holders’ qualities in serving but whether they have political baggage. The opening shot was fired some days ago with the news item that Muscat submitted to the PM a list of papabili. Quite a few commenters on the Times article applauded the fact Muscat’s list is said to include people from “outside the political scene” whatever the boundaries of that “scene” are.

One reaction in the comments thread stuck me. One commenter had said that the President should be “political” (which I understand to mean, have had a political career as an MP) because the post requires some political deftness. Quite right and having some of that mush have certainly helped Agatha Barbara, Pawlu Xuereb and Ugo Mifsud-Bonnici handle the constitutional and political crises that erupted during their tenure. No, replied another, think of Sir Anthony Mamo, our “first and best”, with no history of open political allegiances (which is not to say that he had no political experience; Sir Anthony had been Governor-General).

Now, hands up anyone who remembers anything of significance done by Sir Anthony during his tenure. That’s right, there’s nothing. Which is why he was a good President of the Republic, who is so powerless in our system that he can’t even dissolve the House unless it’s on the advice of the PM and having consulted the Leader of the Opposition.

I was not being critical of Sir Anthony in the way he fulfilled he duties in saying that he did “nothing”; it is actually a compliment in that he stayed well within the limits of his post as prescribed by the Constitution. As to the three other holders I mentioned their interventions were tactful and discreet at a time when our democracy was receiving quite a few jolts.

Sir Anthony, by the way, would be ineligible today. Another very sensible rule prohibits a former Chief Justice from holding the post. Indeed, that rule should be extended to include other posts require judgment in cases where the Government could be party from the post of Ombudsman, to Judges, to Magistrates and to members of the Public Service Commission.

And having former politician Presidents has one advantage. It’s the Maltese version of “kicking someone upstairs”, our equivalent of giving a peerage to a frontbencher. Thankfully, it is also one of the very few roles, the only one in fact, where there have been known to be no comebacks.