President George Abela will disappoint

I suspect some people will be sorely disappointed by President George Abela, at least in the early days of his Presidency until they get used to what it means having him fill the role. The disappointment, ironically, will stem from the historical context of the appointment made yesterday.

Abela was elected President by the House of Representatives on April 1 in unprecedented circumstances. He was the first-ever nominee from the party in opposition, and only the second one who had not served as a minister or even an MP. Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi selected him for the job, single handed. He has not detailed the reason for his decision, saying only that the time had come for a more mature approach to the presidency.

It was that but, I continue to feel, Gonzi's decision came about because of the result of the March 2008 general election. The Nationalist Party won that by a whisker. They did so solely due to Gonzi's charisma and personal record. Whoever came up with the Gonzipn projection had a stroke of genius, from the Nationalist's standpoint.

Having gained victory by relatively a handful of votes, about a third of the average constituency quota, with a single seat and without an overall voting majority, the newly installed Gonzi took three early decisions.

One became apparent immediately - he may have a narrow majority, but he would govern as if it was a handsome one. Signs of the decision came with the early appointments to public boards, with the appointees selected once again almost exclusively from the Nationalist under-50 per cent part of the electorate, and with Gonzi's firmness in declaring more than once I am the Prime Minister, I decide. The tough syndrome was deliberate and also typified his second decision - to show his own colleagues he was the boss.

I believe that the Prime Minister then kept his third decision - to approach the Leader of the Opposition with a proposal to give the Presidency to George Abela - to himself for all of nine months.

It has become very evident, in various ways, that Gonzi did not consult his parliamentary group. My reading is that he may not have even consulted any senior figure in the Cabinet or outside it. He did it his way. In the process he ruffled feathers within his own party.

It is a well-known fact that diehard Nationalists expected the Presidency to go to Louis Galea. For a very simple reason. In the turbulent years in opposition in the 1970s and 1980s, Galea, though the youngest among them, had been a leading figure among the Nationalist 'Famous Five', the others being Eddie Fenech Adami, Guido de Marco, Ugo Mifsud Bonnici and Ċensu Tabone. Those four were all made President. Many Nationalists expected that, once Fenech Adami's tenure was over, it would be Galea's turn.

Gonzi decreed otherwise. He still bears the consequences for his flat decision, as he unmistakably signalled in his speech last Wednesday when he formally nominated Abela to the House of Representatives.

Diehard Nationalists still grumble away. Some of them wait to be able to say 'I told you so' to their leader. They believe Abela will not be as pure as the driven snow in his role as head of state.

I am certain they will be disappointed. So will those among the Labour grassroots who feel that, 'one of their own' being President, he will somehow do things which will favour Labourites.

I expect Abela to do no such thing, even if he were able to, which the President is not. He is an eminently sensible and ethical person. He can be fully expected to follow in the footsteps of the seven presidents who served before him and to fulfil his Constitutional functions, not all of them purely ceremonial, with determined impartiality, as his position demands.

We live in new times, with broad consensus on who should be President at this stage of our history. Yet the Presidency retains its old role, which by its very nature is to have the incumbent serve all the people, all the time as a symbol of national unity.

Gonzi is well within his rights to congratulate himself that he has given the country a good deal, though his calculation - no fool he - would have been to make a net gain out of it. Joseph Muscat too is entitled to feel that he played his cards well when he accepted the Prime Minister's approach, though he surely expected harsh opposition from a couple of former heavyweights within his own ranks.

So, what sort of president will Abela make?

I expect him to be a visible one, but not in any political sense.

The only political feature of him will be, I'm sure, that he will be whiter than white, with no touch of political colour in his cheeks or actions.

He will not lean to one side or the other.

He will be all Maltese.