In one of the last sittings before Parliament was dissolved on March 10, two parliamentary questions (38,618 and 38,619) were tabled about the University's financial constraints. The University featured prominently in the referendum campaign.
The Malta Independent had a headline banner on March 12 quoting Dr Fenech Adami as saying that "Dr Sant lacks a sense of ethics". Look who's talking! Look who is preaching about an ethical approach to politics!
On March 2, the Nationalist Party Sunday paper Il-Mument carried a feature on its front page that read "MLP strategy is going to centre round the BIG LIE that will be divulged at the last moment before the closure of the referendurn campaign. They are leaving it to the last moment so that there would be no time to rebut it."
Those of us who were in the know and were fully aware that Labour was not concocting any such ploy cottoned on immediately. The PN strategists were going to resort to their old tactic - the last minute terinata - to use a traditional term in local politics. Terinata is when you pay somebody to lie against your political adversary to paint him in the blackest colour possible to make him lose voter support. The word is derived from the name of the Nationalist activist Terinu who, on the eve of the 1927 election, was paid to spread a big lie against Sir Gerald Strickland, then Leader of the Opposition and founder of this newspaper.
The big lie
The Mument article was a clarion call so that PN activists would pick up the terinata and spread the BIG LIE like wildfire through the island in the last few hours before polling, when Labour would be precluded from rectifying the misinformation. The only question in the Labour strategists' minds was "What would the BIG LIE be about?"
And, Thursday, March 6 came around. It was the day the BIG LIE was to be unleashed. A calculated risk was taken but the dirty trick did not work out. A debate between the Prime Minister and the Opposition Leader was scheduled to wind up the set of referendum programmes organised by the Broadcasting Authority. Luckily for Labour and unluckily for the Nationalists, the debate was pre-recorded in the morning, ready for late-night transmission during the last couple of hours before the mandatory local news blackout set in.
The two party leaders were debating the future prospects of University students, when Eddie Fenech Adami declaimed that Alfred Sant should be the last person to bring the matter up. Dr Fenech Adami lashed out at him: "Do you remember when my son was interviewed by yourself as chairman of the selection board for entry of students at University and you failed him? Do you think that we have forgotten that?"
Eyewitnesses at the debate observed how shocked Dr Sant was at this personal blow below the belt. It is to his great credit and obvious personal qualities that he did not lose his aplomb or let himself be drawn into a futile wrangle over what was a decoying tactic. He used his precious minutes to keep hammering his political message home.
Dr Sant went home. What Dr Fenech Adami and his political advisers and strategists had banked upon was that there would be no written record of what happened 20 years back and even if there were, the written proof that the BIG LIE had been a WHOPPING LIE would surface when it was too late.
Terinu... Terinu... Terinu... You do it once, you do it twice, so why not try it out a hundred times?
Dr Sant went home, sought out the official report that the Selection Board used to draw up at the end of each selection and which was laid out the table of the House of Representatives. He leafed through the pages and there was the official proof that in 1983, when he was chairman of the selection board there had been no law course on offer. He never was in a position to interview any candidate for the law course, let alone fail Fenech Adami Junior, who in 1983 (by the way) was only 15 years old and still had to go through his A-levels.
Dr Fenech Adami's bad luck was compounded, at 6.30 p.m., when Dr Sant was addressing the biggest crowd the Granaries had ever seen. And those who were not present were watching the transmission live on Super One. Dr Sant explained what had happened during the morning recording of the debate. He held up the selection board's official report and in the most objective assessment of the ugly maneuver shouted out one word "LIAR!". And that was a couple of hours before the debate was aired. He also promised to sue for slander the following morning.
Dirty trick backfires
Word had gone round and more avid spectators than would have been the case followed the debate. Every TV viewer was waiting for the moment of the Great Whopper. Sure enough they were not disappointed. It was that big! Furthermore, the repressed rancour of a festering vendetta was shocking in the premier's words of "Do you think we have forgotten?"
Dr Fenech Adami's gamble had not paid off. The dirty trick had backfired. The true ego of the grandfather politician had been laid bare. Sometimes, truth and justice does prevail over the resources and machinations of the mighty and the powerful. Nationalist activists had nothing new to portray in demonising Dr Sant even further than they had been doing day in day out for the past decade.
When Jesus was among humanity, he was full of compassion for human frailties. There was one type he could not stand - the hypocrisy of the Pharisee. Dr Fenech Adami: do play hard to win the game. It is your privilege. But please, do not lecture us about ethics in politics. It sticks hard in the throat, after the BIG LIE backfired.
There are many who have learned how not to be duped by the masters of misinformation... so many, that the absolute majority of the electorate refused to endorse your project and proposal, despite the fact that the campaign was not played on a level playing field.
To make matters worse and 10 days after the debate and pressed hard by a Super One reporter, Dr Fenech Adami admitted that he was off the mark in lashing out at Dr Sant. But he did not have the decency to apologise or show any regret. Needless to say after Dr Fenech Adami had accused Dr Sant, no "investigative" journalist in the "independent" media took up the story to verify the facts. In the past such "investigative" reporters had not failed to fabricate stories against Dr Sant. Needless to say no one from the University Faculty of Theology came out to chastise Dr Fenech Adami for lying against Dr Sant. Sanctimonious chastisement is in order only if the target is Dr Sant!
John Citizen is more than ever aware of the games certain types play to influence his mind and heart, through manipulation. He is less likely to be duped these days than he used to be in Strickland's time.
evaristbartolo@hotmail.com