The MLP risks hobbling its next leader

To make any sense of the MLP leadership drama, one needs to decide what one makes of the party's expert coffee-cup readers, psychics and counter-intelligence.

The coffee-cup readers help one read the opinion pieces written by the protagonists and their minions. The psychics help one penetrate the veil of appearances, the swirl of smoky scenarios which are paraded largely by the media independent of the MLP.

But before we come to this most interesting company, we must consider the case made by Labour's counter-intelligence. It declares that all these arguments about the need for a change in leadership are colluding with PN black propaganda.

The counter-intelligence argument is simply this: would the PN, whose media insinuate, report and comment that the MLP leadership should be changed, ever give the MLP genuinely good advice? If the MLP strengthens itself, this can only be done at the PN's expense. So why should the PN urge a change in leadership if such a change is good for the MLP?

But this argument is naïve. Does it take any special reserves of cunning to know why the PN urges that Alfred Sant be toppled?

The best means at the PN's disposal to ensure that Dr Sant remains in charge is for the PN to say that he should be removed. The PN taunts the MLP, the party closes ranks around Dr Sant and grandly refuses to do what the PN says - and the PN smirks all the way to the general election in 2008.

So we come now to the MLP experts in the arts of interpretation, the coffee-cup readers and the psychics. They are united in giving the most weight to two elements in the current situation. However, they offer rival interpretations of what is happening.

The first element emerged at the meeting of the MLP executive last Wednesday. Dr Sant then declared what some had been suspecting - that he was reconsidering his decision to step down. Many pairs of eyes instinctively looked at Evarist Bartolo at this moment.

The various descriptions I have received concur that he looked pale and drawn. And throughout the meeting, Mr Bartolo was unusually quiet.

The coffee-cup readers attach great importance to the pale face. In it they see a man who was seeing his plans to run for the leadership go up in smoke. Mr Bartolo will not run against Dr Sant.

The psychics, however, point to the second element. By the beginning of this week, Mr Bartolo was energetically visiting MLP clubs - several a day.

It could be that Mr Bartolo is taking precautions, in case Dr Sant decides not to run after all. But the psychics, gifted with extra sensory perception, see a darker, two-stage plot.

Ignoring the pale face, they suggest that Dr Sant's hint that he will run again is just the first stage of the plot. Its aim is to dissuade certain potential major candidates - notably George Abela - from running. Stage two sees Dr Sant not run (or withdraw his nomination). At this point, the field would be clear for Mr Bartolo to run against a field of weaker rivals.

Here end the suggestions of the coffee-cup readers and the psychics.

I believe the major point for an observer is not deciding which group is right, if either is right at all. The point is rather to wonder what good there might be in all this for the MLP.

The party is being plunged into, and surrounded by, damaging speculation - at the point when it wants to persuade the electorate that it is going through a process of rational self-criticism. It cannot persuade the electorate of this, if the party does not canvass all the options before it. For the wider public, that means giving all interested candidates - John Attard Montalto and George Abela included - a fair chance to explain what they stand for.

Above all, however, the current uncertainty about Dr Sant's intentions threatens to hobble Mr Bartolo himself. Widely acknowledged within the party to be an able politician, he might well emerge as leader by genuine, popular choice. But Dr Sant's ploys would cast the shadow of trickery on that achievement. The doubts about how Mr Bartolo got there will linger with the wider electorate, and distract its attention from Mr Bartolo's criticism of the government.

ranierfsadni@europe.com