The President's beliefs

The nation's highest office wields little, if any, political power, and it should be of little concern what the political beliefs of the holder are.

President-in-waiting George Abela believes cohabiting individuals, including gay couples, should be afforded rights and that the mandatory detention period of immigrants should be reduced. But are Dr Abela's beliefs important or relevant?

President Emeritus Guido de Marco believes the biggest transition presidents have had to undergo is to leave behind their political baggage and act in the name of all the people.

"We have all managed to make this transition. Dr Abela is a party man like we all were, except for Sir Anthony Mamo, and he will have to become the President of all Maltese people," Prof. de Marco said.

For six years, Dr Abela occupied a partisan role within the Labour Party, and as deputy leader for party affairs his main concern was the activist, the grassroots.

His estrangement from Labour after 1998, however, gave him stature that transcended petty partisan concerns. His opposition to Alfred Sant's decision to go for an early election elevated his standing in the eyes of his political opponents. But it was his involvement in the EU membership negotiations as part of the Malta-EU Steering Action Committee core group that put Dr Abela on a different platform.

In his own words, he voted 'Yes' in the EU referendum in 2003, but went on to vote along party lines in the election that followed.

In an interview last year, Dr Abela insisted that he was born a Labourite, was living as a Labourite, and wanted to remain a Labourite. "My primary goal is to beat the Nationalist Party in the next election," he had said.

Of course, those words were spoken in the midst of a party leadership contest that saw him claw back from the wilderness to runner up.

But it is this psyche which, according to Prof. de Marco, the president-in-waiting will have to abandon.

"I am convinced Dr Abela has the right principles to continue down the road adopted by previous presidents, who forgot their political background to become presidents of all the people."

Prof. de Marco has no doubt that Dr Abela can perform this leap from partisan politics to a more sanitised national role that people of all shades and colour can relate to.

"Like all of us, Dr Abela will also learn while in office since he will be living the experience of being everyone's president," Prof. de Marco says.

To great extent, Dr Abela's personal views on a number of issues become irrelevant. The President does not set public policy and, more often than not, acts as a rubber stamp for all laws passed through Parliament.

There is little room for manoeuvre. Technically, the President can refuse to sign Acts of Parliament, which would effectively prevent them becoming law. This has never happened, and every president has kept a prudent distance from interfering with a government's legislative programme.

In an interview in January 2007, President Eddie Fenech Adami was asked whether he would be comfortable rubber-stamping legislation that would broaden the definition of the family, as the Labour Party was promising in its electoral programme.

He insisted that he had a conscience and could not be "violent with his beliefs". But the President also made a subtle distinction between "fundamental" matters that could not be compromised and issues where one could have an opinion that others disagreed with.

No president has had to make that distinction. There have been very few morally charged issues that made it to Parliament in the form of legislation.

But the years ahead could prove to be different. The opposition is calling for the current rent reform bill to include provisions for cohabiting individuals, including gay couples.

The opposition leader pledged that he will be presenting a private members' bill to introduce divorce if the Labour Party is elected to government at the next election. Social Policy Minister John Dalli also spoke of the need to start a discussion on the subject.

There have been repeated calls from various quarters for legislation to regulate IVF and biotechnology.

Potentially, Dr Abela could be the president to rubberstamp legislation along these lines in the next five years.

Little was known of Dr Abela's stand on most of these issues. During his long political sabbatical between 1998 and 2008, he kept silent. It was only last year, during the PL's leadership race, that Dr Abela's views were aired in public.

"We are not a confessional State", he declared in an interview, clearly making a distinction between the Church and the State.

Ironically, Dr Abela admitted that the distinction he draws is influenced by Archbishop Paul Cremona, who had said that people needed to make a distinction between their personal morality and the legal and civil rights that come out of the different relationships that are born in society.

Dr Abela used this argument to justify the need for legislation that regulates the rights of cohabiting individuals, including gay couples.

"While as a party we have to remain committed towards the basic value of the family, we need to (ensure) that the rights of minorities are also regulated," Dr Abela had said.

On divorce he was less categorical but recognised the great anomaly whereby Maltese courts have the power to recognise a divorce obtained abroad, but have no power to grant it themselves.

His comments though came with a qualification: "I am talking in terms of civil and legal rights, because as George Abela I do not want to speak about divorce, but about how to strengthen the family."

On illegal immigration, Dr Abela left no doubt as to his social-democratic credentials. He argued in favour of reducing the detention period from 18 months to one year and insisted there was no "infrastructural or financial excuse" to deny them the dignity they deserve.

"It is a question of balance between their rights that emanate from a person's dignity and the national interest," he argued.

Unlike last year, when Dr Abela's beliefs were politically significant as would-be leader of the Labour Party, as President they may be less important. It will obviously depend on the character he will give the presidency.

But one issue Dr Abela could address openly, even as President, is the wound created by the violence in the 1980s, which still festers and is re-opened during election time by the Nationalist Party.

When addressing the issue last year, Dr Abela insisted he had no difficulty as leader of the PL to apologise for all that happened in the 1980s.

"Whoever got hurt knows that I was not involved in those incidents. As a member of the Labour Party I cannot agree with what was wrong. But if we want to look ahead, both major parties had their good and bad moments, and where they made mistakes they should bow their heads and apologise."

Dr Abela can easily repeat those words when he is finally voted in by Parliament as the next President. Coming from him they have the power to exorcise the ghost of violence once and for all.