The cash register trick

As soon as the news spread that the MLP had won the 1996 general election, among the carcades of celebrating Labour supporters one could see some shopkeepers dragging their cash registers along with them and gleefully demolishing the 'offending' machines.

These people had interpreted Alfred Sant's promise to remove VAT as including the end of cash registers that reported their turnover to the VAT Department. It was no such thing. The inefficient tax system Dr Sant concocted to replace VAT also required cash registers to keep tab of the value of whatever is sold in a retail outlet.

To give him his due, this was not another Sant broken promise. He never actually said that the obligation to keep a cash register would be done away with when VAT is replaced - even though some thought that he had implied as much.

Why were so many people tricked into thinking that, in Government, Dr Sant was going to do something that he had no intention of doing? The trick, of course, is a very clever 'sleight of tongue' at which Dr Sant excels - he has a knack how to say words in an ambiguous manner so that they could mean very different things to different people.

The second week of the 2003 electoral campaign signalled that Dr Sant thinks it is now time for him to resort again to the cash register trick. This time he wants those Labour supporters who have voted for Malta's accession to the EU to think that with him as Prime Minister it would still be possible for their aspirations to come true. The truth, of course, is quite different.

This, in effect, is why Dr Sant has persuaded his party to promise another referendum on the issue of Malta's future relations with the EU. At first glance, this promise is tantamount to Dr Sant saying that it is not true that the 'partnership' option won the March 8 referendum.

As with the now defunct 'partnership' proposal, the 'second referendum' promise also lacks fleshing out and actually means that the state of uncertainty prevalent in Malta will remain a reality for quite some time.

When promising to abolish VAT in 1996, Dr Sant had bound himself to do so within six months of assuming power. It took him more than that to abolish VAT, and he was doing it on his own. The time parameter of his renegotiating Malta's position vis-à-vis the EU is one sore point in Dr Sant's proposal and that is why he had to shrink it from a maximum of ten years to a month or so in the space of a few weeks.

From a purely party standpoint, Dr Sant's proposal is riddled with holes that his political adversaries can mercilessly exploit for their ends. Why, one might therefore ask, did he do it?

His 'second' referendum proposal gives the impression that Dr Sant has now backtracked from his oft-stated position that it is an election - and not a referendum - that should decide the EU membership issue. This is actually what those Labour supporters who voted Yes in the referendum want desperately to believe.

The suggestion of another referendum is therefore being put forward simply to assuage the conscience of these Labour supporters who are now being misled to think that voting for Labour on April 12 does not mean reversing the decision they took on March 8.

Just as in the case of the cash registers in 1996, Dr Sant will never actually backtrack from his stand that it is an election - and only an election - which should decide the EU membership issue. Yet he will keep on tricking people to think that the issue will somehow be decided by yet another referendum.

Dr Sant's 'second referendum' proposal has been made solely as a bid to retrieve the votes of those Labour supporters who have voted Yes on March 8. As such, he will probably not talk too much about the proposal, even though it will be included in the MLP electoral manifesto. He just wants the idea to exist vaguely, but exist enough to influence the pro-EU Labour supporters while mulling on how to vote on April 12.

Last Sunday, a funny thing happened during the MLP meeting at Floriana. In his speech, MLP Deputy Leader George Vella promised the crowd that Dr Sant would speak at length on the MLP's referendum proposal. Dr Sant did no such thing. In fact in his speech, he did not even refer to this proposal.

For any political observer, it is obvious that with Alfred Sant as head of government, Malta will never become an EU member. Yet he still tries to trick people into believing otherwise!

Will the pro-EU Labour supporters fall for the 'cash register trick' on April 12? That is the question.

Michael Falzon is a former Nationalist MP and minister.