The President's tomorrows

It was and remains a mistake to appoint Dr Eddie Fenech Adami President of the Republic, and for him to move straight from the office of prime minister to that of head of state. Now the deed is done. It would be pointless, even tasteless, to keep harping on the foolishness of it after today. The former Honourable Gentleman is, as of today, His Excellency. He should be treated and shown respect as such.

The Leader of the Opposition was astute as well as correct to stress that, while vehemently disagreeing with the appointment, the Labour side would not boycott the President. It is proper that the position should always be bigger than whomsoever is filling it. What matters now is how it will all unfold.

I have no doubt that Dr Fenech Adami will grow into the role and act as behoves a President. There can be no doubt that he will not say or do anything in public that will be coloured by his political past as a partisan political leader.

Though none of the politicians who preceded him to the Presidency had been a party leader, all came from the top echelons of their respective parties. All of them, to a man and to the one woman among them, acted out their national role with propriety.

There are no pitfalls within the ceremonial position itself. The President meets the political class on a regular basis once a year, when his palace in Valletta is open to the ministers, Members of Parliament, and officials of political parties, among others, to exchange New Year greetings with him.

He will meet individual politicians here, there and about at social functions. He will meet the prime minister of the day regularly, as the latter visits him to "keep him fully informed", as required by Section 87 of the Constitution, "concerning the general conduct of the government".

The prime minister, under the same provision, shall also furnish the President with such information as he may request with respect to any particular matter relating to the government of Malta. (This is the one area where the President is not merely a ceremonial head. I doubt if anyone ever gets to know what the President has requested, if anything at all.)

The President will also meet diplomats on various occasions, but he will speak to them as the President, above party politics, even if he happens to be alone with any of them at any time.

His demeanour will be careful and restrained. On occasion he will go abroad and speak in the name of Malta. He will do that in countries and fora of the European Union.

He will say his piece in the factual context that membership is now accepted as a fait accompli, a done deal, by all of Malta's three political parties although, as on any matter in every real democracy, with varying degrees of enthusiasm or scepticism.

There will be a civil relationship with the Opposition, which will never fire up, yet neither will it carry an iceberg as its symbol.

No, there are no pitfalls in the role, unless the head of state creates them for himself. None has, and I cannot see Eddie Fenech Adami doing that, either.

The question shall always linger, why did the gentleman want or accept the position at all? Only he can answer that and it is unlikely that a puzzled public will ever be any the wiser, though some will not ditch supposition and others will continue to surmise.

The Acid test would come in around four years' time, should Labour win the next general election.

H.E. Dr Fenech Adami would be required to read out the President's Speech. Written by the Cabinet, in the unmistakable hand of the new prime minister, it will set out the legislative proposals and programme of the Labour government.

It would be surprising if these were not set against a backcloth that dismisses, no matter how tight and calculated the language, all that the outgoing Nationalist government had stood for - that being the heritage left to it by Dr Fenech Adami himself, in his other life as Nationalist Party leader and prime minister.

Dr Ugo Mifsud Bonnici, a senior Cabinet minister and a major Nationalist stalwart appointed by Prime Minister Fenech Adami as head of state two years earlier, had to do that in 1996, when Labour won the general election.

Following him from the government front bench, I reflected that I had rarely seen anyone feeling as uncomfortable as he did on his way down the chamber of the House of Representatives, to the rostrum.

He read out the President's Speech, couched in firm but forward-looking terms, manfully. But there could be no doubt it was an ordeal for Ugo Mifsud Bonnici, although he went to serve out his term with total propriety, and even became more of a confidant of Prime Minister Sant than most of those in his Cabinet or in the rest of the Labour parliamentary group.

What would President Fenech Adami do, under the hypothesis of a change of government next time, if he found the address handed to him by the Labour Cabinet too unpalatable to him? Would he resign?

Possibly not.

But what if a Labour government went on to find a way to withdraw the immunity extended Prime Minister Fenech Adami's recommendation to Joseph Fenech in the context of the knifing with murderous intent of the PM's personal assistant?

What if President Fenech Adami was required by the Labour Cabinet to sign the instrument drawn up to effect such withdrawal of immunity?

All hypothetical, but none of it impossible to happen.

Those who will be around if and when such a scenario came about would be pardoned if they recalled that scenario building is always advisable to try to anticipate events as far as can be.

Perhaps scenario-building did take place before the new President was appointed. In fact, it would be remarkable if it did not.

What would happen if such a scenario came about could not have been left to the eventuality. Intriguing thought, but that the door has to close on that as well. It can only be opened should the reality test ever materialise...

Meanwhile, at this first opportunity I wish to advance for the attention of President Fenech Adami a few very minor suggestions, as a personal message.

Do review your security arrangements to ensure that you do not take unwarranted risks. But see if you can cut down your escort of two mobile police officers to one. They do not really accompany the President because of the risk element.

As prime minister you went about with one of your trusted drivers without any such paraphernalia, though your security would also have been properly looked after. Since some ceremonial trapping is inevitable, do keep it to a minimum.

That way you will save a few thousand liri in public spending. Not much, but enough to set a good example.

(And, by the way, try to do away with the practice of having the Presidential car parked in the Valletta Palace courtyard, and the motorcycles of your escort in the entrance to the Palace. Try to retain the unobtrusive practice you followed as prime minister.)

While on the subject of saving on expenditure, a matter so pressing that your successor as premier has burdened himself with the responsibility of seeing it as finance minister, try to revise some of the Presidential travel arrangements.

I say 'revise' in a broad sense.

Revise, in the first instance, the Presidential programme of visits abroad. You shall have to make some, no doubt, starting with attending the ceremony to enlarge the European Union on May Day.

But, surely, it should not prove compulsively necessary to go on missions abroad as much as your predecessor did.

And, when you do go abroad, do remember that you carry your dignity within your office and yourself, that you represent tiny Malta, that you can make your presence felt, but not excessively so. In brief, do keep your entourage to a minimum. (No doubt, your grandchildren have introduced you to the inspiring words of Walt Disney's Bare Necessities.)

Also, try to put a stop to the wasteful habit - which you too practised as prime minister - of having a crew of journalists along on foreign visits. May Day is special, granted. But otherwise, is it really necessary to speak to the Malta media abroad?

Whoever bears the expense - Air Malta, PBS, the other stations - that is Maltese money leaking out. Modern communications should help to cut down the cost of that item dramatically.

As to the rest of it, you have in front of you a qualitative leap backwards, re which I for one do not at all envy you at all. May wisdom and strength fill your tomorrows. May God also give you the ability to overcome attacks of boredom that will threaten your Presidential spirit.

When that happens, you might do worse than try the little collection of stories which I once gave you, as one grandfather to the other with a life of our own outside politics. By accepting the Presidency, you have made me less sure that you ever had time to read it.