Too many cooks spoil the broth

The Malta Labour Party has a leader, two deputy leaders (for parliamentary affairs and for party affairs), a general secretary and a chief executive officer to administer party affairs. Till a couple of days ago the Labour leader was not the Leader of the Opposition. Charles Mangion held that honour. Now Joseph Muscat is finally sitting on the Leader of the Opposition's throne usurping Labour's "hero", Joseph Cuschieri's seat in the process. To date, I have no idea what the latter's role within the party will be but we have been told he will occupy a high position too!

To add more cooks in the kitchen, last month, Labour took on board two experts whose remit is to restructure the party from top to bottom. To quote maltastar's report: Louis Grech, Karmenu Vella to spearhead Labour internal changes: "The commission will be reviewing the conclusions of the reports drawn up following the electoral defeats of 2003 and 2008, with the aim of addressing the flaws that were pointed out in these reports. This is being considered as the next step in the direction of giving the party a professional structure that is result-oriented and more effective. The commission will report directly to Joseph Muscat and has been requested to complete its task by the end of the year" (maltastar, September 8).

All these top-heavy overlapping posts are definitely part of the earthquake the leader of the party promised some time ago. But where did all these people sprout from? Dr Muscat, who garnered only two-thirds of the delegates' votes, although backstage, has been dabbling in politics since he was 16 years old. Others, like Toni Abela and Anġlu Farrugia, have performed a miraculous comeback, shifting their "political" principles sideways some 360 degrees on their way here. Jason Micallef... Oh well, we all know what part he played in Labour's recent defeats.

Like Dr Muscat et al he was also very much against Malta's membership of the European Union. In fact, Labour's consistency - anti-Independence, anti-VAT, anti-local councils, anti-private schools, anti-private hospitals and clinics, anti-pluralism, anti-liberalisation, anti-privatisation, anti-students' stipends; anti-Mcast; anti-Gozo Ministry; anti-EU and anti-euro - is what binds them together. How could they all have been so terribly misguided?

The briefest of overviews of the two deputies might enlighten us further on their political prowess.

In 2003, Dr Abela stated that he was not a member of the MLP; he had no intention to contest the general election; he was against Malta's membership of the EU and that he felt closer to CNI than to the MLP on the issue. He was described as a lawyer, a left winger, former MLP president and dissident and former Alternattiva front liner. Furthermore, this "outspoken gladiator on divorce" agrees "with abortion, if the life of the mother is in danger, in the case of rape and if it is certain that the unborn foetus will be a severely handicapped child" (Malta Today, January 5).

In May 2003, Dr Farrugia, who was elected on the MLP ticket, a success he repeated in 1998 and 2003, was also interviewed in the same paper.

He was a police officer for almost 20 years "following and giving orders" during those dark and "violent" years under Labour (1977-1996) and is now a lawyer. He has been serving in Parliament since 1996 and was opposition spokesman for justice in the last legislature. In 1998, he contested for the post of deputy leader for parliamentary affairs but George Vella beat him to the post. In 2003, Dr Farrugia set his eyes on the leadership of the party but we all know he did not make it. I know this can be quite confusing, so to re-cap, Labour has had: Joseph Muscat, leader of the party; Charles Mangion, Leader of the Opposition; Toni Abela, deputy leader for party affairs; Anġlu Farrugia, deputy leader for parliamentary affairs; Jason Micallef, secretary general of the party; James Piscopo, chief executive officer and, last but not least, Louis Grech and Karmenu Vella to reorganise the party. And where will Joe Cuschieri squeeze in?

This mega top-heavy structure is too complicated for words: Who will actually be taking and executing decisions? Who has power over whom? Surely the role of the deputy leader for party affairs overlaps with that of the secretary general. And, for curiosity's sake, where does the CEO fit in all this? What will his role be exactly? Will the consultants be empowered to tread over everybody's toes? And, in the meantime, what will the leader be doing, hiving with the busy bees to reconstruct their intricately complex honeycomb?

Within the next five years, Labour expects to win the general election but if managing its own party in such a confusing manner reflects in any way how it would govern the country, I hope it stays right where it has been for the last 20 years, out of any gourmet kitchen.