PN panic

It feels quite absurd to be attacked by a media machine as massive as that owned directly by the Nationalist Party. Except for the Malta Labour Party, no other political party in Europe owns such an aberration. There is a strong sense of the ridiculous when the propaganda behemoth is directed to attack the only political party in the country deprived of such means of communication.

For the Greens it means that we have already achieved a complete rout of our political rivals on the level of ideas. We have made them so desperate that they have been obliged to break their campaign of silence and resort to antique slanders.

In the moments when we are not amused by the situation, we are appalled by the humiliation that the PN inflicts upon itself. If there were an even playing field in media access, where would the PN be?

They have no answer to the rightful claim by the Greens that Arnold Cassola stands head and shoulders above any contender for the post of MEP. He has hands-on experience as party spokesperson on EU Affairs for over a decade.

He is the co-founder of an indomitable political party. He is not dabbling in politics for the first time. He has been up front and honest about his political beliefs without fail for 27 years of public writing and with the Greens since 1989.

He has represented the Maltese Greens at every international meeting attended by the party until the day he was elected to the committee of the European Federation of Green Parties (EFGP). He remained the Alternattiva Demokratika spokesperson on EU affairs also in 1999 when he was elected to the post of secretary general of the EFGP.

He was unanimously re-elected to the post by the 31 member parties in 2003. He had earned his spurs in the previous three years travelling across Europe to deal with the various challenges facing Green politics in a myriad of political situations. He never spent a cent of Maltese tax money for the purpose.

He became a familiar face to Green politicians ranging from the Prime Minister of Latvia and the Foreign Minister of Germany to those leading fledgling Green movements in Turkey and Israel. He represents the European Greens in the Global Greens Conference.

He is the only Maltese politician whose name is known in Kenya, Australia, New Zealand and the United States; everywhere Green Parties exist and hold office. In every country he has been greeted with respect by the Greens' allies and opponents from other political parties.

He is known to presidents, prime ministers and government ministers across the continent and beyond. He is, without question, the best known Maltese politician in Europe.

In Brussels he has a four-year track record of co-ordinating activities with politicians and EU bureaucrats from a leadership position. He has been able to have motions brought before the European Parliament, questions put by MEPs to the EU Commission and contacts made for Malta's representatives throughout the accession negotiations.

When Dr Joe Borg needed a confidential meeting with Joschka Fischer, the Green Minister of Foreign Affairs of Germany, Arnold was there to make it possible in time. He was able to provide similarly crucial contacts to every stakeholder and stakeholder organisation that asked for his help during the years of negotiations.

Without fear or favour he kept open channels of information which were often restricted or closed whenever a question was put through Maltese means. What PN candidate in the EP elections comes close? Never mind MLP candidates.

Arnold Cassola was a key member of the AD Executive that stood firm when, following the EU referendum victory, the PN moved in for the kill against the Greens. Our 6.1 per cent victory in Local Council elections on the same day as the EU referendum had made it clear that Green support had made the Yes to EU victory possible.

An alliance with the Greens would have meant a free expression of popular will in the Yes to EU camp. The PN could not allow it.

The Greens made the offer of alliance, the PN offered a bribe of a seat in parliament without contesting an election.

The Greens remained fundamentally democratic and refused. The PN decided that it was checkmate for the Greens and attacked.

Had the Greens been allowed to enjoy the six per cent support they certainly had earned in the Referendum campaign, there would be three or four Green MPs in Malta's parliament today. Zero-sum politics would have ended sooner.

Arnold Cassola knew all this when he participated in the engineering of a Green election strategy which would shed almost all the Green support in favour of the PN. PN fear, suspicion, and monumental ingratitude was repaid by the Greens with the most outstandingly generous election campaign ever made in the annals of Maltese political history. Arnold shares in the merit for it as much as any of us.

Between March 8 and April 12, 2003, the Greens campaigned ceaselessly to survive against an assault against their very existence as a political party while attempting to shed the highest level of support ever achieved by any third party in Maltese politics in the past 30 years. We succeeded brilliantly against all odds.

We gave away 5.3 per cent of electoral support garnered through years of commitment to the ideal of EU membership. There would have been no EU accession for Malta without Green support at the crucial moment. We shed votes and gained hearts.

Malta saw nobility and generosity in politics for the first time in living memory. Arnold Cassola was part of the undeniable greatness of Malta's third party.

In the aftermath of the 2003 elections the Greens were the only political party to bounce back with a vengeance. The PN had won a pyrrhic victory. It was victory without honour. For the exhausted PN leadership it was time to confess its deception about Malta's dire economic straits. For the MLP it was rout in panic.

In our moments of success, at the publication of the EU referendum and election results, our concern was for those who had not won. Without them EU accession would make no sense. It was not a project for any one political party.

It was a change designed to last far beyond the life of any government and needed the country's full participation to succeed. We did not lick our wounds but launched our call to the rest of the country immediately. The response has been unmistakable.

During Alfred Sant's exploit at Ta' Qali we had been the only people to stand up to the distortion of the EU Referendum result. Our reaction was immediate: a flat denial of the insanity even as it was still going on. We could be firm with political opportunism, with losers in denial.

It did not stop us from persisting with our trademark inclusive politics throughout. EU accession was not only for the PN, not only for the Greens but for all Maltese and Gozitans. Arnold Cassola participated fully in this display of responsible politics at the height of extreme tensions.

The political greatness of the Maltese Greens, our generosity with our rivals who want to make themselves our mortal enemies, is utterly insufferable to the moral dwarves leading the PN. Our outstanding generosity in the 2003 election campaign was repaid by the infamous Luxol speech aimed at ensuring that Greens would not be elected on Number 2 votes in the only district where this was safely possible. Nationalists were treated like fools; they were deliberately deceived. The PN attacked the Greens only because it was already sure of victory.

Had the PN not been sure of achieving more than 50 per cent of the vote, it would not have attacked the Greens. Had the achievement of an absolute majority still depended on an unshed Green vote, only the election of a Green MP would have saved the day for Malta's accession into the EU.

The PN was sure to win. With electoral districts tilted in its favour, surpassing the 50 per cent mark would mean a majority of three or four seats in parliament for the PN.

The Greens were no danger at that point. They could only elect one MP at best. They were attacked because the PN could afford to eliminate any chance of an end of zero-sum politics, any hope of a third party entering parliament in the short term, any hope of fair and independent criticism of its ruinous misgovernance of the common good.

Elected in their own right instead of as clients of the PN, the Greens would have continued to enjoy national respect and parliamentary immunity to tell the whole truth and ask the unanswerable questions. It was too great a danger for the PN leadership.

It is without question that the PN is in government today because the Greens campaigned to shed votes in its favour in the last election. A swing of less than two per cent would have made the PN into catastrophic losers.

Lawrence Gonzi is Prime Minister and Eddie Fenech Adami is President only because thousands of Maltese voters whose first preference was the Green Party understood the instructions of the Green Party executive to make EU membership an overreaching priority for the country. The PN is in deep denial of these unassailable facts.

This is why the PN cannot acknowledge its debt to the Greens. The debt is too great and its ingratitude unspeakable. This is why its media machine is aimed at destroying the Greens once more.

This is why the PN did not have the courage to invite the Greens to the EU accession celebrations. This time Green supporters need fear no consequences. All the political prisoners held by the PN through fear and media manipulation can freely escape. They will never get a better chance to do so.

This is why the PN leadership has sunk low enough to carry out a despicable smear campaign based on a slander. It has no other argument than the lie that Alternattiva Demokratika is in favour of abortion. The PN 2004 EP campaign has been reduced to this verbal garbage.

Alternattiva Demokratika is and has always been consistently against abortion. It has documented its stance in Malta and abroad unflinchingly for over a decade. It has won libel cases against PN candidates on this issue as far back as 1996. It is all that remains to the PN. It is a sorry sight.

On June 12 Malta will elect its representative in the Green Group in the European Parliament. It will be a victory for all Maltese and Gozitans. It will be a crushing blow to dirty politics, to the politics of fear.

It will be a celebration of Malta's true European nature. It will be a liberation of all those who have been coerced into voting for a party they despise because of another party they feared.

It will be a devastating blow to virtual politics, to the appalling void of ideas that depends on media fabrication to sustain the myth of exceptional realities. It will be a new Malta on June 13 and it will not have come a day too soon.

No media machine, no scandalous fabrication, no Luxol speech can save the PN leadership from Malta's political truth.

www.arnoldcassola.com
harry.vassallo@alternattiva.org.mt

Dr Vassallo is chairperson of Alternattiva Demokratika - The Green Party.