Stable or stagnant?

It has become a cardinal truth for the politically pinheaded that, in order to avoid political chaos, Malta must avoid the evils of coalition governments. Italy is set up as an example of political failure, a fate worse than death. Malta, with its series of intermittent one-party, virtual dictatorships, is set up as a paragon of political virtue. If we were as politically bankrupt as Italy, we would be one of the world's leading economies. What a disaster!

Some people really love the status quo and wallow in it. From where I stand, the bi-polar, two-party, one-party government, system has stunted our political development giving us two countries instead of one and robbing all Maltese and Gozitans of a sense ownership of the state. Does anybody notice that the state is hardly ever mentioned? If anyone in government alluded to it, it would underscore the fact that a party in government is a custodian, not the owner of the powers of the state. Do we notice that there is virtually no common ground between us as Maltese citizens?

One-party governments, alternating in periods of a decade or more, have a fatal tendency towards what has been described as totalisation. The government, any Maltese government, is structurally compelled to take up every space in public life. Politics and politicians hog the media to such an extent that many simply shut it all off.

The government, any government, is always on the look-out to deny any space to the opposition, any opposition. The opposition retaliates in kind. We have a system of political exclusion that prevents any side conceding to the other on anything. We are an extreme example of a bi-polar political system producing zero-sum politics.

The remarkable progress achieved since Independence "because of the one-party government system", as one political mythologist put it, is politically inflated. We have done surprisingly well but we have no reason to be complacent, let alone self-congratulatory. What we have achieved deserves special applause, not to our governments but specifically to those who achieved it in spite of them. We have learnt doublespeak and doubledoublespeak and to know that what politicians say can mean anything. We have survived and thrived regardless of our political parties' propensity to invert all our realities out of sheer electoral expedience.

And, yet, where would we be now if we had not spent years of heightened political tension unheard of in any Western democracy since World War II? The legacy of the 1960s, the 1970s and the 1980s is still with us in the form of fear, mental paralysis, prejudice and mutual incomprehension, suppressed but not eliminated in the peace-at-any-price 1990s. There are also the dead, the maimed and the ruined to consider.

The inestimable economic and life quality cost of Maltese-style political perfection is simply ignored by today's advocates of more-of-the-same. Those who refuse to believe that any danger persists should recall the dual celebration of the 2003 referendum result.

Nationalists who now sing the praises of the single-party government system should try to recall what life was like in opposition before they rush to point at the evils of coalitions or at the benefits of the status quo in our political system.

Labourites may be eager to have their own team in the driving seat before too long and choose to focus on that target to the exclusion of all others. They too would do well to consider what the single-party system has given us: corruption, opaque government, political unaccountability, the ever-present oppression of political discrimination real or simply perceived.

Our remarkable progress has now been documented to have been much less than that of comparable economies. The slope of our growth curve is flatter, the divergence will continue to grow in future unless we change radically.

Those of us who have dedicated the last 15 years of their lives to giving this country a completely different political culture have identified the two-party system as a major stumbling block for our country's development: social, economic, cultural and political. A country eternally handicapped by diseconomies of scale cannot afford the insanity of splitting up into two mutually exclusive camps and denying itself the full use of its meagre resources.

We have a dream of a new Malta firing on all cylinders at last, reaching out for its future without being oppressed with the political uncertainties which have made all our lives hell for the last four decades. We want to have a common strategy which can give us all a framework in which to insert our personal contributions. We want to have civilised debate about the best means to achieve our common targets and not the perversion of politics which has persuaded itself that it exists to award untrammelled power to this or that political party and for no other reason. We want a chance to be able to do our bit towards this culture change.

It is complete nonsense to claim that the smaller partner in any coalition necessarily calls the shots. Its presence necessitates some horse trading. Why not? Would that not be a better articulation of the will of the people expressed in the previous election? It is absurd to assume that the major coalition partner will succumb to all and any demand of the smaller partner. To argue in this way is to accuse the major parties of being unprincipled and irresponsible. If a minor coalition partner were to make unacceptable demands, an early election would be called and the minor partner would vanish from the political map for good.

I am keen to do away with the myth not only because it is a deceptive, fear fantasy but because it could raise positive expectations far beyond the rational. My colleagues in the other 31 European Green Parties who have participated in all sorts of alliances, local, regional, national and European with left, centre and centre-right, tell me that they have always had to make compromises, to concede in order to make some progress on their trajectory rather than none at all. It is politics, real politics. It has sometimes caused disappointments because of unrealistic expectations. We will strive towards our goals and never betray them. Would it be better to remain forever without anybody in Parliament thinking on these lines?

Never has any Green Party anywhere become the tail that wags the dog. In every instance Green parties have brought to the political agenda issues which would otherwise have taken decades to surface. In Malta we already have a long list to boast of without having yet made it to Parliament. Greens add spice and vitality to political debate, they prevent the status quo from becoming a national coma, they keep the future and future generations present in everybody's mind and not merely the outcome of the next election. It is the politics of people and not people for politics. In Malta it would be a massive improvement.

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

www.alternattiva.org.mt

hcvassallo@kemmunet.net.mt