Political Christmas gifts

Somebody came up to me yesterday and asked why the Greens never have their own Christmas collection. It took me a little while to click. He was being ironic about the PN and the MLP fundraising extravaganzas. Not only had the PN collected the incredible sum of Lm270,000, they had beaten the MLP's Lm70,000 hollow.

What does it mean? Is it real? Is it all a good screen for the hefty donations by prudish and prudent if wealthy donors? When I expressed my doubts about it all, my friend was surprised. Was it not all accounted for?

I suppose the party treasurers have to tot up the night's takings but who can ask for an account? If a significant part of the amounts declared received were never received at all, who can ever demand to know? This is no philanthropic organisation, no public finance affair. He seemed surprised. He even asked whether it would be illegal to make massive donations to a political party. Was there not some law regulating the matter?

He was stunned to learn that there was not. There will never be a Maltese Tangentopoli no Mani Pulite. What political parties make in donations between elections is nobody's business. The law only regulates election campaign donations. That too is a joke. Copenhagen criteria? What Copenhagen criteria?

For years AD candidates refused to fill up and swear to the campaign return required by the Electoral Commission. It was our protest against the charade of limiting election expenses to Lm500 per candidate when everybody was aware that much more was spent in single items such as coffee mornings or the printing of leaflets. The system only ensured that a significant number of those elected to Parliament were perjured before they took their seats. We were duly prosecuted for failing to declare the pennies we had spent.

Something small has changed. Candidates are now allowed to spend more and the law also looks at party expenses besides candidates' expenses. The law is still beset with loopholes large enough to send hundreds of thousands of liri through the net unnoticed by the law. No account is taken of anything spent or supplied free of charge before the election campaign proper. No account is taken of the commercial value of television airtime devoted to political propaganda. And that is only at election time.

At other times there are no rules. If Mr X donates a million liri to party Y, it is nobody's business, certainly no prosecutor's business. Should it be? Are citizens not free to spend their money the way they prefer? I suppose it is a matter of quantum. There comes a point when size does matter and could threaten the proper functioning of democratic institutions. "Malta not for sale" comes to mind.

In a country where obligations are carefully weighed and measured, a Lm5 subscription does not get you far but a five-digit gift could make you king. It could be insurance or an instalment or simply a wager. Many businesses have dual directorships, one blue, one red. Making donations in both camps increases their chances, their right to complain, their right to be heard. It is a system, an anti-system. Other people's rights? Who cares?

How much is insider information worth? Who can prove that it was passed? Who can ever make the connection between the crucial transfer of knowledge and the transfer of funds. And it need not be in cash. Competition rules? What competition rules?

Building party clubs or headquarters gratis or at cost has been known to happen. It is by no means illegal. It makes a mockery of our democracy, of equality before the law, of equality as citizens but it is not against the law.

From day one the Greens have campaigned for regulation of the financing of political parties. What we have achieved so far is negligible. It is the same with our demands for a proper Freedom of Information Act granting citizens a right to know and a Whistleblower Act giving protection to those who spill the beans on corruption.

Political parties in government are more scared of making the first move on this than on amending the rent laws. It would mean that they would be the first to bear the brunt of it, the first tsunami of revelations. In single party government systems it is virtually impossible, it would be suicidal for the government that passes such laws. Long live the status quo.

Ironically it is not only political parties who prevent change. If they were made to depend on membership subscriptions and modest, well recorded and scrutinised donations they would face financial collapse. As it is, they appear to be deeply in debt already. They would need more public financing; more than the Lm100,000 which the political parties in Parliament share between them. It would mean more taxes and taxpayers are very reluctant to shoulder any additional burden. They too prefer the status quo.

In the absence of widespread ownership of the country's institutions, it is virtually impossible to convey to ordinary citizens the message that the anti-system of institutionalised graft is extremely costly, much costlier than any public financing of the political parties. Covert funding deviates the proper flow of authority, it makes our lives unreal, it makes what should be the official system a virtual reality. What appears to be is almost irrelevant; connections and obligations are everything. Nothing is illegal but nothing works the way that it should. Only money rules.

Some joker will come back with the old saw that the Greens are always "holier than thou". How do the Greens fund their activities? Do they give a public account of donations received? The fact is that we have learnt to survive on shoestring budgets. We may not own our rivals' assets but we certainly do not owe their debts. We are poor but we are free and that should be a major virtue in politics. We may not be in a position to determine national policy but we are certainly beholden to nobody in particular and more fit to propose what it should be.

Our membership subscriptions are a crucial source of funding. They pay my salary and that of two part-time employees. Our support is my boss. We are extremely cost-efficient. Relying almost exclusively on voluntary support, we tackle our rivals with not insignificant success. We do not need millions of liri, not even hundreds of thousands to survive. They do. Sometimes I wonder why.

We have also invested our assets very carefully ensuring a trickle of revenue and we are very grateful for the modest donations that are made from time to time. We too hold fundraising events, mostly social events, hardly advertised at all. At election time we have had and remain grateful for support and donations in kind which make things possible. So far we have managed.

We know that we can do much better than we have so far and there is no need for television extravaganzas at Christmastime. We would have serious scruples about emptying people's pockets just ahead of Christmas, just days before the annual television fundraising marathon for charity. We find it crass. The donors of Lm340,000 to Christmas politics do not. It is a free country, almost.

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

www.alternattiva.org.mt