I had no clue that my letter Who Is Good Enough To Replace Jason Micallef? (October 2) would bring about such a huge feedback from people in the form of text messages, some agreeing with what I wrote while others vehemently declaring that the new secretary general was by far the best person to replace Mr Micallef.
If anyone reading that letter thought that I was somehow doubting the capabilities of Stefan Zrinzo Azzopardi in his new role as temporary secretary general of the Labour Party, that is not the case.
Let us put the facts together correctly: Though Dr Zrinzo Azzopardi could not be more competent than he already is as president of the PL, I somehow cannot visualise him as the party’s secretary general. Having known Dr Zrinzo Azzopardi since birth, I have seen him develop from a cute, curly haired and super intelligent kid to a married man with a mission to get the Labour Party back into power. I can actually see him in various roles but no, I will not shy away from stating that I cannot see him in the role of secretary general, not as a permanent one at least.
It is not a question of not wanting to see him in that post but just a question of just not seeing him in that light. This should be very easy to understand even if one were only 10 years old. One doesn’t need to be as clever as Carl Gustav Jung to get the gist of what I am on about.
What I meant when I stated that I somehow cannot see anyone taking the place of Mr Micallef was that Mr Micallef was as magnificent as general secretary of the PL as Dr Zrinzo Azzopardi is as president. Suffice to say that even the PL and I are on the same wavelength on this because not even they have allowed Dr Zrinzo Azzopardi a permanent position as general secretary as yet.
I stick to my guns and argue that few could fill in Mr Micallef’s shoes. Few would be capable of dealing with “the other side” as if they were an important exam with the one doing the examination passing with flying colours. Many would argue that Mr Micallef made a lot of mistakes in the past but I argue that the man who makes no mistakes does not usually do anything. Nobody is infallible, not even a politician. Possessed with a remarkable gift of the gab that not many politicians have, I stand by what I said. No matter what one might think of him on a personal level, one just has to admit that, nine times out of 10, Mr Micallef won a political debate hands down. What Mr Micallef had is something that I can only compare to the Prime Minister and not the government I want in power, the gift of smiling in the face of supremely heated debates. The truly remarkable ability to smile even if the smile is a sarcastic one when in actual fact there is only a feeling of harpooning the adversary inside.
The only person I know who can smile while acknowledging doom and gloom at its worst is Lawrence Gonzi himself! Sometimes, though you might not agree with an opposing figure, you can find yourself admiring him. No matter what, no matter where, that smile is ever present, sarcastic or not.
While I hope that no offence was taken by followers of Dr Zrinzo Azzopardi and Dr Zrinzo Azzopardi himself, I feel that I can do nothing else but stick to what I wrote in my previous letter. As president of the PL, Dr Zrinzo Azzopardi is an exceptional man, bright, good-looking, alert, down to earth and very, very fair. As secretary general Mr Micallef was unique but, since it was he who resigned, it is only natural that the main topic of my letter should be him.