Editorial

After weeks of speculation and rumour, Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi is set to announce in the next day or so who he will nominate to be the eighth President since Malta became a republic in 1974. He could not have come up with a better name than George Abela.

Dr Abela is politically astute - an asset that should not be overlooked in choosing the nation's head of state - as well as belonging to that rare breed who are capable of bridging the political divide. He has proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that he can keep his head while those around him are losing theirs and keep his own counsel when those around him are throwing daggers.

It has been an interesting 12 months for the 60-year-old lawyer, who, following last year's election, re-emerged to offer his services to the Labour Party after 10 years in the wilderness.

Those lost years were unfortunate for a man whose qualities should have ensured that his political career flourished; unfortunate for a party that might have seen its way into government by now had he been its leader - as he should have been after the 2003 election, if not before. But perhaps it has been most unfortunate for the country, which could have benefitted greatly from what he has always had to offer. All three are to get a belated second bite at the cherry.

Dr Gonzi deserves immense credit for going down this road. The easiest thing for him would have been to look down the list of faithful Nationalist Party servants and take his pick; or to fill one seat to conveniently create a space for someone else in another. He did none of that. Instead he felt the pulse of the Maltese, sensed the mood that has prevailed since the last election, and reacted to it.

Dr Gonzi is to become the first Prime Minister to nominate a candidate who has sat on the opposition benches; and the second to nominate a candidate which both parties support. Not since Anthony Mamo became President in 1974 has that been the case; but Dr Abela's political background makes this fact all the more significant.

Joseph Muscat deserves credit too. He and Dr Abela slugged things out in a fiercely fought-out leadership election last June, but he embraced his defeated opponent when it was over. The Labour leader then appointed him as the party's representative on the resurrected Malta-EU Steering Committee, before consenting to his nomination for President.

Dr Muscat could also have chosen an easier path, since he was already receiving flak from Alfred Sant for mooting Lino Spiteri's name. In the past week that flak turned into a thinly-veiled public attack on his leadership.

He can expect more - which is ironic when one considers it has come from a man who accused his predecessor of betraying the party after Dom Mintoff openly displayed his disagreement with him.

Our advice to Dr Muscat would be to dismiss such attacks with the contempt they deserve, and to continue his work to undo the huge amount of harm that has been done to his party in recent years.

And our advice to Dr Abela would be to follow the advice he himself had offered in an interview with The Sunday Times last April, where he said that the next President should be a symbol of national unity. He will be just that.