Lino Spiteri
Minding the store
Who cares about Nationalist MP Jeffrey Pullicino Orland's juggling with the truth? Who cares who becomes leader of the MLP? Whose store is it, anyway? According to the Prime Minister and Nationalist leader Lawrence Gonzi the Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando affair is an internal PN matter. According to a wide swathe in the MLP the question of who takes over the reins of the party is of concern to Labour alone. On both counts, the reality is slightly different.
Nobody has the right to tell the PN what to do about Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando on the basis of conclusions one can already reach given what he said and did not say and what Dr Gonzi told Reno Bugeja on Dissett. Irrespective of what the police report will hold when it eventually comes out, Dr Gonzi has provided public evidence that his MP was not open-handed with the facts. He was not as transparent as a child's innocence towards the voters and the public, never mind his own leader. The Pullicino Orland affair was an affair to remember. It cannot be forgotten, even if the PN, for political reasons, now decide to sweep its white-washed parts under a dirty carpet.
Joe Saliba, the exiting PN general secretary, has already given shocking confirmation that the party's primary objective was not to let the affair damage the PN's chances of winning the general election. The man's cynical view of politics shocked one reader of The Times, who wrote a letter to the editor asking what about probity in public affairs. No one else seemed to mind, suggesting that Malta's political soul enjoys hibernating. But the facts of the affair, hidden, shoved under the carpet or not, remain what they are. No amount of cynical closing of ranks will make them any less distasteful.
As for the new leader of the MLP, of course it is the party which is tasked to elect him, whether by its delegates or a wider constituency of paid-up members. But the person elected will not only lead the Labour Party and be the alternative Prime Minister. To win the next general election s/he will have to penetrate into non-traditional Labour catchments. Otherwise Labour will probably be destined to lose the next general election as well.
Already, practically a whole generation does not know that Labour can be a party of government. Thousands more coming of age between now and the next general election will join it.
It is in the interest of the MLP to be able to assess what floaters and the young expect of a modern social democratic Labour Party in order to consider voting for it.
If those who select the new leader wear blinkers to public opinion, as the party's Vigilance and Discipline Board initially wanted them to, they would not be able to vote with winnable contender or contenders foremost in their minds.
The delegates and the party machinery are perfectly entitled to become a cocoon of detachment from reality. But will it be in the interest of the party and, ultimately, of the country, to do so? Watch out for Nationalist tricks - yes. But watch out for internal tricks too. The PN bosses may understandably seek to limit the damage of the Pullicino Orland affair.
But if in doing so they devalue the meaning of service to the public good. which should motivate all parliamentarians, they harm the country and not just their party.
The parties may hold the key to the stores they run. But those stores are built on public land.
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Francis ATTARD
Apr 14th 2008, 22:16
Mr.Spiteri, you wrote:'To win the next general election s/he will have to penetrate into non-traditional Labour catchments' You should have proposed this to your leaders way back in the '80s when you were involved in the governing of this country. Had you done that, may be the Labour Party is not in the situation it is in today.
The Labour Party is in a such delicate situation today, that if it elects the wrong leader, a time will come when the nationalists will become so experienced in governing our country , that the then Labour leaders will end up taking lectures from them, on the matter, at the university.
Joe Martinelli
Apr 14th 2008, 19:08
In keeping with the frejjeg (scrambled eggs) concocted by the MLP in the last fifty years, Mr. Spiteri's biography sends scrambled signals.
The 'decoder', Dr. George Abela has now given us a clearer picture of the way the MLP deceived its own followers.
Too bad that in doing so, he all but eliminated his chances of becoming their leader.
Of course, keeping mum for all these years does not make Dr. Abela a model of sincerity and his revelation now, is nothing more than an opportunistic way of trying to gather the support of disillsioned delegates. Listening to part of his speech on Sunday, his obsession with 'regularizing his relations with the GWU sounded like a tape recording of the former leader's declaration that the "GWU will always be the preferred union" of the MLP!
john fenech
Apr 14th 2008, 18:15
Mr. Spiteri you have very good pens which at times, if the intention is for a balance argument the substance defy the scope.
Do you think it is a rational argument to put Jeffrey Pullcino Orlando and the MLP leadership in the same scale? The arithmetic correspond to 5000 against a possible 400000
One can safely put the first to rest but it will be difficult to do the same to the latter, as you know from first hand experience.
It might be difficult to tell the PN what to do but I do hope the MLP will ask its members what they want! I sincerely hope that the solution for both will be in the best interest of the nation.
R. Caruana
Apr 14th 2008, 17:15
Wonder if Mr Spiteri will now revise his autobiography and tell us more about the U-turn on the EU issue that the MLP was planning in 1997! Wonder why he chose to keep mum about it. Being selective with one's own history is rather unacceptable.
emm fenech
Apr 14th 2008, 15:55
i find it pretty two faced for lino spiteri to be shocked by the cynicism displayed by joe saliba. what would he call his own behaviour with regard the VAT issue in 1996. he found no difficulty then to contest with labour, even when he knew (he told us years later) that what was being proposed was a nonsense.
Charles Camilleri
Apr 14th 2008, 14:58
yes Lino who cared when people were being tortured at the police depot? who cared when all kinds of human rights were trampled upon? who cared when opposition clubs were all arsoned? who cared when the Times and the leader of opposition residence were burned down? who cared when persons were beaten to death at the depot? the least is endless. Yes lino nobody cared All of you who served in the MLP at that time have not yet apologised.
Joe Martinelli
Apr 14th 2008, 13:24
Mr. Spiteri's essays are always interesting to read and as an armchair critic he excels.
However although his bias is known to one and all, sometimes the absence of the element of fairness is truly annoying.
He writes (again) regarding the JPO affair and how (allegedly) Mr. Saliba covered up for him during election time! Why? Was Mr. Saliba supposed to make a big issue out of it, jeopardizing the NP's chances of winning the election? The JPO issue is much much less significant than the MLP gaining power and adopting policies which did not make sense and which Dr. Spiteri himself was against!
Dr. Spiteri should be reminded that the MLP never revealed the turbulence within its own headquarters, the recently revealed 'planned U turn regarding the EU and in spite of it the MLP continued on the anti EU path even if their majority had agreed that membership is the best way to go. Do you call that honesty, Dr. Spiteri? And that is only the tip of the iceberg. That had national significance. The JPO affair although receiving national attention is but a minute fraction of importance compared to the MLP's fumbling of their dishonest EU policies.
Mr. Spiteri, now that the MLP's attention is on electing a leader, has again taken up their cause in stirring the JPO cauldron one more time!