Closing a window of opportunity

With the printed result of the general election barely dry, on being reinstated Prime Minister by a hair's breadth Lawrence Gonzi gave a heartfelt reaction. He said the people had spoken and he had listened to them. Voters had denied him an absolute majority and, instead, gave him a relative majority by a slim margin.

Adding back those who did not vote, split down the middle in their perceived support for the PN and the MLP, leaves the result unchanged - the Nationalists came to represent slightly less than half those who had voted. The PN leader knew that had there been a different pair of hands to those of the exiting chief at the helm of the MLP, the PN would have lost.

Eager to see a new and better way of doing politics there were many who wanted to understand Dr Gonzi to be saying that he wanted his new government to be more inclusive and that he would really try to demonstrate that, together, everything (or at least more) was possible, bearing in mind his tiny mandate.

They soon began to realise that they were mistaken. The new Gonzi government stunned friend and foe alike by abruptly taking Malta into the Partnership for Peace. Maybe the time had come to do that, picking and choosing carefully from the menu of the Partnership to avoid the remotest perception of any link with military involvement. The government had given no hint of that in its electioneering. But, maybe something urgent had come up. Given that the issue was controversial in the local context, the least the government could have done was to advise the opposition before going public.

That limited exercise in sensibility went begging. Then started the long round of appointments to the boards and committees of a multitude of public sector bodies. One known Labourite - Charles Mizzi - was appointed to replace another staunch social democrat - Dominic Fenech - on the editorial board covering PBS. Otherwise Labour appointees are scarcer than white men were in the African jungle when Livingstone was trekking through it.

Very clearly, Gonzi had made a very basic decision - to dispel any notion that he would be soft; in fact, to be as hard a liner as could be. He dropped broad hints as to why. He was painfully aware that he had a wafer-thin electoral majority. He was just as conscious that his majority in Parliament was down to one seat, which was all his party would have got even under a less imperfect electoral system. He was determined, however, that he would not appear weak, he would not waver from administering from up down, never mind that he continued to shoot the weary and ironic line that together, everything is possible.

Then along came the MLP with a new leader. Signalling that he was jettisoning the bad examples he had picked up during his local political apprenticeship, Joseph Muscat said that, moving forward, the MLP would not oppose just for the sake of opposing. It would do its best to cooperate with the government on national issues.

The Labour leader cited ST Microelectronics as one example. He said that the MLP would not win anything out of problems there or similarly elsewhere - Malta would lose. A basic thought, really, but a departure from the Labour no-nix-nein-nyet style of recent years. Taken seriously, the revised approach offered a window of opportunity.

Government and opposition would continue to be poles apart on many things, offering distinct alternatives in the clash and contrast so essential to a healthy democracy. But they need not stretch the issue to breaking point. There were areas where consensus could be found in the national interest. Consensus built, as inherent in the term, on mutual accommodation and respect.

Gonzi and the hardliners in his team saw the window and, looking out of it, concluded there were dangers ahead for them if they moved on through it. If Labour cooperated on national issues, the PN spin machine could no longer paint the MLP in a darker shade of black. Gonzi very bluntly made it clear that he would not risk catching a cold from any breeze that might blow in through the new opening.

He stated, very publicly, very stern faced, that the government was there to govern. That it had a mandate to implement its programme, and would not fail to do so. He said that without any hint of lingering humility over his extremely narrow victory in March. He was right. The winning party in our election, no matter what its margin, forms the government and administers according to its programme.

But even governments with big majorities are short-sighted when they act in the face of public opinion. Starting off, the post-2008 Nationalist administration has more than half the public against it. The PM's inverse psychology in that context, to be seen to be as tough as nails, is an old tactic.

The PM continued to follow it this week in announcing that the Cabinet had decided to privatise Malta Shipyard, in some form or other. No one from the government side felt it would be at the very least courteous to advise the General Workers' Union, which represents the shipyard workers, of the Cabinet's plans before they were made public. Much less did the government feel that it would be useful to consult the opposition beforehand.

Conceivably, both the GWU and the opposition would immediately have opposed the idea. But at least, the government would have tried to do the right thing. Instead, it slammed whatever was left of the new window of opportunity shut with a bang. The boyos in the Cabinet may feel that's telling them. Whether that's showing the public that this is the best way to govern is something else again.