Thirty years on

Thirty years have passed since Malta became a republic - an event of much more historic importance than a simple constitutional switch from a monarchy to a republic.

Malta's Independence Constitution had never been accepted by Dom Mintoff's MLP and it was only after the 1974 amendments that Malta could boast of a Constitution that was de facto accepted by all. This is the most telling argument in Ugo Mifsud Bonnici's pamphlet Kif Sirna Repubblika (How we became a Republic) published five years ago.

In the long hot summer of 30 years ago, the PN in Opposition managed to water down Mintoff's original proposals for a new Constitution to something that the PN could live with, and then agreed - not without many difficulties - to amend the 10-year-old Constitution such that 'revised' version had the acquiescence of what was practically then the whole Maltese political spectrum.

Mintoff had made such a battlecry on the 'unacceptable' Independence Constitution, that after the 1974 amendments, the MLP propaganda machine for years kept on harping on Malta's new Republican Constitution when in actual fact there was no such thing. Malta actually ended up with the same 1964 Constitution that had been amended in a number of areas - amendments that were, admittedly, of some import but the amended Constitution hardly qualified to be considered as a completely new document, as the MLP kept on claiming.

Thirty years on, last Monday President Fenech Adami spoke on the importance that the Constitution should not be amended without just cause but at the same time he stressed that it should not be static but reflect present-day realities. Ironically, the President was not referring to what was agreed upon 30 years ago, but to more recent changes that, among other things, assumed that the cold war would go on forever.

The President, together with his three predecessors Guido de Marco, Ugo Mifsud Bonnici and Censu Tabone, had played a very important part in the process that led to the 1974 amendments, and I can well understand his line of thinking in referring to the Constitution as "the creed of a nation".

Incidentally, 1974 was also the year when I decided to enter the political arena and was elected on the national executive of the PN's youth movement (MZPN). I suddenly found myself immersed in a political party undergoing an incredible transformation. The PN was in the midst of two ongoing processes - the discussions on the constitutional amendments on a national level and the internal debates and discussions that led to a new PN statute in 1975.

I always remember a particular evening, when after a heated debate in the PN executive on the discussions on the constitutional amendments, I was asked to type a letter to the Prime Minister outlining the broad position of the Opposition on several issues. I was not chosen - and sworn to secrecy - because of my typing prowess but because as MZPN secretary-general I had at my disposal the only decent typewriter in the PN headquarters and the printing press. I knew I had to be very careful as any mistake meant starting again from the beginning of what was a rather long letter.

When I managed to do it, at the first attempt, to the satisfaction of George Borg Olivier, who was a stickler for the right thing, I got the most important lesson in politics that I ever had in my life. Borg Olivier read the letter as typed, grinned, and after signing it told me: "I am not going to thank you, not because you don't deserve it but as you have just entered politics it is very important for you to learn that in politics you should not expect to be thanked for anything you do." How right he was!

Thirty years on, a lot of water has passed under the bridge, including the struggle that led to the 1987 constitutional amendments: the clause ensuring that the majority of votes translates into a majority of seats and the neutrality clause - both reflecting the realities of 1987, but both due for review to be in line with present-day realities!

Persons from both sides of the political divide have occupied the Presidency, each of them rising to the occasion by forgetting that they were once in the thick of political controversy and carrying out their duties with the dignity of the office of the head of state.

The choice of the person who was to be President was in itself controversial on many occasions: witness the initial PN reaction to the choice of Agatha Barbara when the Opposition representing the majority of the electorate was boycotting Parliament, and the initial MLP resistance to the first President from the PN side, Censu Tabone. Experience has shown that such histrionics are futile and after all, the President is a ceremonial head of state - an office that is owed everyone's respect.

That is why I cannot understand the MLP's falling in the same stupid mode about the present incumbent. Last Monday, for example, Super One TV reported the Republic Day award-giving ceremony by refraining from mentioning the President's name (shades of Toni Pellegrini's Xandir Malta days) and even eliminating him completely from the visuals by only showing an 'anonymous' hand pinning medals on the recipients' chests! Obviously this was premeditated to the extent that the cameraman must have been given instructions to film the ceremony in a very weird way!

Alas, it seems that 30 years are not enough for some of us to grow up and act in a mature and dignified manner.

micfal@maltanet.net