Transparency and Socialist fat cats

The country is longing to be led in a serious and transparent manner, Alfred Sant is reported to have told his audience last Sunday. If this is a most desirable aspiration of the electorate, as indeed it should be, then it is more than likely that the Labour Party will have to spend the rest of this decade and more on the opposition benches.

And I am not referring solely to the furtive, murky Dubai imbroglio in which two of the three front benchers travelling have been deeply implicated. At first the Leader of the Opposition tried to laugh the matter away. That it was not a laughing matter is amply proven by the meeting between the contractors and presumably the top party brass, probably in an attempt at damage control.

So much for the MLP's apologists that this was no scandal at all! They reasoned that no public money was involved so the MLP had nothing to explain. But aren't shadow ministers the alternative government? Why should not the people see in today's behaviour tomorrow's performance?

The proof of the gravity of the predicament the party found itself in lies in the way Dr Sant reacted once he realised that the Nationalist Party media had been alerted to the said meeting. He was composed enough in front of the cameras but his wrath knew no bounds days later when alluding to the viper that was to be dragged before the party's general conference. Now it seems things are not that simple. We shall wait with bated breath.

It seems that it was this incident that raised what initially seemed a partisan issue to a national one.

Was this episode, which drew the leader's blessing, a vindication of the promise made by the party's general secretary on radio a few weeks ago? Few have not heard about his threat that they would be inspired by the tooth for a tooth and an eye for an eye principle. However, his interpretation of meritocracy as defined in the same radio programme has been less in the limelight.

He stated that the MLP had enough able human resources to head government departments, boards and agencies. As I wrote in my last article it seems this latest episode shows that this principle would also be applied in the private sector. There they also have enough friends and business partners, as well as friends of friends, to be fed off the fat of the land. Socialist fat cats! Not that they are exactly on a diet now!

Perhaps it was to soothe those who do not consider themselves within the inner circle that pushed Dr Sant to declare that those who are not against them stand by them. There is still hope for those who want to insure themselves in time.

I said that this latest mess is not the only event that shows how Dr Sant operates and his inability to lead. The frequent leaks are proof that within the party itself there are many who after 14 years still have not accepted his leadership. The MLP has become like a sieve. And, as the Maltese saying goes, you cannot use a sieve as a sun shield! All these "vipers" and "traitors" during these years were not, after all, columnists planted by the PN. They were all true Labourites who had no faith in the party as led. In this latest incident they questioned not so much the competence of the leaders as much as the lack of transparency and the way the leadership was giving out favours to the selected few.

Dr Sant never commanded the complete and total loyalty of the party. He basked briefly in the radiance of the victorious 1996 election. But his incompetence and loss of social conscience soon brought the chinks out into the open. It was not solely Dom Mintoff. Already Lino Spiteri had left after a few months and Charles Mangion showed his penchant for blundering in untenable positions early in the legislature. He had broken the code of ethics by failing to get the Cabinet's clearance for a pardon for a drug offender. (Lately somebody blamed the civil service for this faux pas.) George Abela first resigned as Dr Sant's adviser, laconically declaring that Dr Sant needed no advisers. Then he left once and for all after realising that Dr Sant was committing the mother of all blunders when stepping down as Prime Minister and, in so doing, handing the reins of power back to the Nationalists.

There was also the story about Dr Sant's election to party leader.

Many Labour supporters voted for the first time for us due to their utter disgust with the MLP's stance regarding EU membership and the non-acceptance of the people's verdict in the referendum. Others were aghast at Dr Sant's strategy that in their opinion cost Labour the 2003 election. Others were incensed that, after he had repeatedly shown his lack of leadership qualities, he feigned his resignation from the leadership and contested once more still hoping to emulate Robert the Bruce.

It seems the MLP is increasingly realising that its leader is its biggest downside. There must be a group that is valiantly trying hard to prop him up. He has been forced to change his position on the euro, demonstrably due to electoral considerations, not out of conviction. It must have been drummed into his head that he cannot repeat the 2003 strategic blunder. It seems he has been advised that the less he speaks outside party club gatherings the fewer the gaffes. One only has to read the non-interview in The Times last Saturday, despite the known ability of the interviewer. (Nor does one need to compare and contrast with Lawrence Gonzi's confident replies in a similar interview.) He just graduated from the dry "no comment" to repeated refusals to discuss internal affairs, that is his not that of others.

But within Labour's ranks and on its fringes are thousands who truly yearn for a transparent, clean, strong, confident and competent leadership. There are already hundreds who are considering that the surest way of achieving this is to abstain or switch their vote believing that another drubbing will inevitably and finally rid them of this man who promised so much yet achieved so little, who snatched defeat out of the jaws of victory, who let go when he should have tenaciously hung on, and who pig-headedly clung on when he should have let go. These hundreds may within the next months grow into thousands.

Despite the apologists' plodding, independent opinion is realising more and more that the MLP has become again the Augean stables Dr Sant had initially cleaned. Many are convinced that they can now only be thoroughly cleaned once another election would push forward a strong uncompromised but competent reformer.

Dr Deguara is Minister of Health.