The positive aspects of coalitions

In concluding its derisive critique of coalition governments, The Malta Independent editorial (January 28) rhetorically asked, "Do we want Malta to become like Italy?" Though The Times leader of the same day echoed the same fallacies about the "dire consequences due to the inherent 'instability' of coalitions", it effectively invalidated its own misconceived notions, as well as those of The Malta Independent, by prefacing its claims as follows: "Italy enjoys one of the highest Gross National Incomes per capita in the world ($31,000). Its men folk have a life expectancy of 77, its women, 83".

Given the choice between a standard of living of that excellence and a quality of life of that calibre, who would sanely opt for rigid autocratic rule, assuring yet more of the same woefully low standards perpetuated by the execrable incompetence of "stable" single party governments in Malta, of whichever political hue?

Real change, however, can and does happen.

Despite European Community membership, the Republic of Ireland was an economically depressed, stagnant country throughout the 1980s, chronically beset and destabilised by a highly divisive national fixation on absolute majority single party rule which inexorably led the country nowhere.

Ireland, frequently but fancifully cited as the exemplary success story to be emulated by Malta, has since emerged as the much extolled "Celtic Tiger".

So, how did Ireland's remarkable "reversal of misfortune" come about?

Ireland is, like Italy, a coalition-administered nation that continues to reap significant, sustainable economic and social benefits deriving from the collaborative commitment and steadfastly responsible Green Party participation in government.

Ireland now boasts the second highest per capita income of any country in the EU and fourth highest in the world based on measurements of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita.

Can Maltese and Gozitans, therefore, really afford to be routinely gripped by the extreme unsteadiness, uncertainty and instability of recurrent "election fever", spawning economic paralysis and administrative atrophy for a year and more prior to general election outcomes, just because they are traditionally expected to result in exclusionary, "we-win-big: you-lose-huge", absolute majorities?

Given that successive coalition governments have achieved such spectacularly fruitful results in Italy and Ireland, imagine what this nation could similarly accomplish by authentically embracing a genuinely "new way of doing politics"; that of enlightened consensus governance, and a truly reforming change for the better.