Rotten smell and principle

It's not unlikely that while in Denmark Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi would have mused that there is something rotten in the state of his parliamentary group. It is beginning to smell in the open. Vows of loyalty to the party are all well and good, except that the party is not the parliamentary group and that is where the bad smell lies.

New MP Franco Debono is proving to be a bit of a maverick. His latest little bit of drama was to absent himself from the House of Representatives when two non-money votes were taken on Monday.

To be frank, notwithstanding my own few years as an MP and in politics, I did not smell a political rat. I thought maybe Dr Debono had wondered off to some urgent business outside the House and had been caught short. As every Whip of his party knows, these things happen. It happened once during the life of a Labour government, which was quite embarrassed. So much so that the MLP, as it then was, fined the absentee MP Lm200, a tidy little sum in those days.

There was no indiscipline or rebellion in that incident. In contrast, there seems to have been a clear objective in Dr Debono's self-exclusion from the votes, which went beyond an inadvertent incident, proving that my old political nose is getting a bit blocked.

Reported this newspaper on Saturday: "When asked why he was absent at the moment (of the House votes), Dr Debono answered cryptically that he could have taken the action 'on a point of principle' but he did not elaborate."

Ah, well, a slip of the mind while on some sort of business outside the House is one thing. Principle is something else. Principle is no ordinary word. It is a heavy term. When one does something as a matter of principle, one would have thought it over carefully. The action is deliberate.

Which means that Dr Debono embarrassed his side - the government - with unambiguous intent. As a principled politician - and thousands of voters felt he was so and returned him to the House in a handsome victory over a hugely seasoned and powerful opponent, Louis Galea, no less - he made a sharp frontal move. Craftily, he keeps his cards close to his chest but later told The Sunday Times (yesterday) it was all about dignity, about not wanting to be a voice in the wilderness.

I do not at all believe the Labour spin that Dr Debono is angry at the possibility that Dr Galea will contest the by-election, which will result when John Dalli leaves the House. That would be absurd, not at all befitting someone in his middle 30s, with the prospect of further electoral success ahead of him.

Besides, I cannot see Dr Galea leaving the respected post of Speaker of the House to get back in the hurly burly of constituency politics. Having been unexpectedly defeated once must surely be enough for him. It is most unlikely that he would fight a by-election to become a backbencher, for that is what he would surely be - the Prime Minister is not about to reappoint him as minister again, much less to displace Dolores Cristina from education, as Labour spin has it.

Which means that the principle which made Dr Debono deliberately abstain is a stronger force that could go beyond the dignity excuse. Dr Gonzi probably knows more than he's telling. He would have the public believe that there was nothing to his visit to Dr Debono's home after the no-show, which became a yes-show later. Yes, and pull the other one too while you're at it, Prime Minister!

There is an unusual tension in the Nationalist parliamentary group which, unlike Labour, is not used to clothes being washed in public. Despite shows and no-shows, no Nationalist MP is going to carry a bluff too far. But this is a distinctly unmerry season for the government.

Best wishes for serenity, peace and health far beyond the festive season to all my readers and to the editor and his staff.