A tale of two clubs

We are mid-way through the silly season, and fittingly enough the Nationalist and Labour parties have continued with the Punch and Judy politics that have become the norm. With these two, the tit for tat point-scoring never ceases, even when both are manifestly in the wrong. As charges keep being traded, and accusations exchanged, the waters get muddied and no-one can figure out what the parties' stand on any particular issue is.

A case in point is the one relating to the Siġġiewi Labour Party club. The stately building in the main square of Siġġiewi was leased to the PL on the eve of the 1981 general election, for the paltry sum of €465 a year. The każin regulars got lucky again before the 1987 election, when the lease was renewed. Things chuntered along quite nicely until earlier this year when the Nationalist deputy mayor of Siġġiewi Karol Aquilina tabled a motion proposing that the property be returned to its owner - the government - once the lease had elapsed.

Now Aquilina may have been grandstanding up to his political profile, but his indignant words about the Siġġiewi case seemed to reflect the PN's position - namely that the party did not approve of the taking of property from its rightful owners, or for that property to be handed over to be used as a każin.

The Nationalist Party took great pleasure in lambasting opposition leader Joseph Muscat for practising a policy of special privileges after he defended the lease. Muscat's take on the matter was that the issue was a divisive one for Siġġiewi and that the PN had turned it into a partisan spat. End result? The PL appearing defensive and exhibiting an off-putting sense of entitlement. It was the PN which emerged as the hero of the piece - as a political party which believed in righting past wrong and which eschewed what it called "a policy of special privileges".

But the PN's words about justice ring rather hollow, when you compare its record in relation to another political party club - the one at St Venera. Just like the Siġġiewi property, it is an imposing house on a main road. It has a large back garden and would fetch a considerable sum if sold on the open market. Unfortunately, its owners have been deprived of the right to dispose of it, or even to make use of it as they will, for more than 40 years. They haven't been able to do so, because the property has been requisitioned - effectively dispossessing them of it.

Only this time, the government doing the requisitioning was not a Labour administration, but the Nationalist administration of 1967. Having issued a requisition order, the place was left empty and unutilised for over six years.

Not only was the property not used for the provision of housing, as required by the relevant legislation, but there was no discernible public purpose for depriving the owners of what was rightfully theirs.

The property was left to rot, without it being put to good use or any use at all. The PN's inertia served as a boon for the Labour government which succeeded it. It handed over the premises to the Labour Party to be used as a political party club in 1973. The rent payable (after it being increased through court intervention) is €382 a year - ridiculously low amount of compensation for the deprivation of property.

Over the course of the years, the owners filed a number of lawsuits to evict the tenants who had been imposed upon them; however, it is an understatement to state that the rent laws favoured the tenants. The owners' legal challenges were unsuccessful and they have had to resort to seeking compensation before the Constitutional Court, where the case is awaiting judgment.

Predictably enough, the PL has opposed the owners every step of the way. The underlying reasoning for their limpet-like clinging to the property seems to be that since the political parties in Malta do not receive any state funding, they are entitled to some other form of 'help'. If the help comes in the form of somebody else's property, then so be it. No surprises there.

What is surprising is the attitude of the Nationalist Party. Considering the political kudos it has made from the Siġġiewi situation, I can't help wondering why there has been no similar intervention in this case.

Instead of seeking to redress the injustice caused by a previous PN administration, Nationalist officials prefer to retain the status quo. That way the PN retains a stick to beat Labour with.

Look at Tonio Borg advising Joseph Muscat on his new year's resolution for 2009. The deputy prime minister had said, "Joseph Muscat's new year's resolution should be that of renouncing to the legal effects of these requisition orders and let go these properties, which have been snatched from ordinary citizens to the benefit of the then party in government." Borg omitted to say that the original "snatching" in the St Venera case had been carried out by a Nationalist government. Instead, he wrote about the way PN secretary general Paul Borg Olivier "boldly" offered to submit all political party clubs to the new reform.

I fail to see what is so bold about redressing a long-standing injustice. Nor do I see why it is necessary for the government to have the PL's agreement to submit all clubs to the reform. Of course, it could be just another ploy to make the Labour Party look bad, since it is the party which has the greatest number of leased clubs, whereas the PN only has two.

However, the biggest disappointment comes in the way of the much-touted (by the PN) rent reform. Despite all assurances to the contrary, no provision has been made for the liberalisation of the leases of political party clubs and no sunset clause has been introduced.

There is a vague reference to the minister being able to regulate the lease conditions so as to ensure an equitable balance between the rights of the lessor, of the tenant and the public interest. But that is all.

It is a shameful sop for people who have been deprived of their property for nearly half a century and who have been caught up in the PN-PL crossfire. Will Borg, Jason Azzopardi or Aquilina try to do anything about it? Will Muscat beat them to it? Or will the situation remain unchanged - yet another testimony to political hypocrisy?

cl.bon@nextgen.net.mt