A hard legacy for Lawrence Gonzi

Lawrence Gonzi's legacy from the old year to the new year is a dark one. The problems that will be caused by the water and electricity tariff increases coming into force from January 1, and by the Franco Debono MP factor, will haunt the government's 2010 from the start.

There can be little doubt that the Honourable Debono's personality is being dissected by the PN.

There is still less doubt in my mind that the Prime Minister has presented the public with the wrong end of the stick he is being beaten with. He declared that the Debono affair was the result of Labour Party spin.

If he believed that, Gonzi would truly be deceiving himself. Several factors are converging to make the new MP the difficult factor that he has become for the government.

It is amply clear that he has a mind of his own. It is also a fact that, being a self-made man and a lawyer, he is used to being his own man; to setting his agenda and depending on himself to achieve it.

These ingredients do not combine well with being a backbencher on the side which happens to be in government. There, it is the Prime Minister and his ministerial team who call the shots and hog the limelight. It is not uncommon for that to translate into discontent among backbench MPs.

Government backbenchers are essentially voting fodder. They are there to vote in favour of government proposals whenever they are called to do so. In more mature democracies, they are allowed a measure of freedom to sound critical of some government measure, especially if it affects their constituents badly. Over here it is toe the line, or else.

Lest any current government backbencher feels I am running them down, let me recall that I was in that position myself for some 16 months after I resigned my ministerial post. I had barely sat on my new backbench seat when another Labour backbencher came up to me with a lament and a proposal.

We are lost over here, he said; nobody pays any notice to us. Why don't you lead us? My reply was that backbenchers should raise their complaints with the party whip and in meetings of the parliamentary group.

I also made it a point to whisper in the Prime Minister's ear that backbenchers were restless, and should be given something to do.

As it is, Gonzi has involved Debono more than is the norm. He took him with him on an official trip to New York. And he has named him as the chair of a new select committee (ironically, one to be set up under a law that did not pass the second reading at first muster because Debono deliberately absented himself from the House to signal that he felt backbenchers were in the wilderness and without dignity).

Can it be that the MP wants to be a minister? All MPs aspire to that, but not after a mere year-and-a-half of being elected, whatever timber they are made of.

I should think that Debono, a lawyer, would also wish to concentrate more on building his practice further than becoming a minister with the prospect of having to start practically afresh in his profession when his government is voted out.

Another thing being said about Debono is that he is at sharp odds with veteran Louis Galea, whose seat he took in the last general action, and will not abide the possibility of him returning in a casual election and being appointed a minister once more. This is a notion I find hard to digest.

No one could expect to execute such a tall order, even if there were huge differences between two individuals, which may not necessarily be the case.

That aside, though he is keeping his cards close to his chest, I do not see Galea leaving his Speaker post to try his luck in a casual election after a stellar career in Parliament.

Still less do I see a scenario where Galea truly goes for a new form of self-flagellation, makes it, and is then appointed minister. That is probably the last possibility on the Prime Minister's mind, looking ahead as he must, and not ignoring the troops presently under his command.

Could it be that, among those troops, there are those who harbour their own grievances and directly or indirectly egg Debono on in calculated mischief? Not an impossible hypothesis, but one which Debono would not fail to see the implication of: that he can be manipulated. That would be a contradiction to his evident strong trait of being his own man.

Whatever lies at the bottom of it all, there is much for the Prime Minister to chew. He did not feel it beneath him to visit his rebel MP at his home. He should not feel it beneath him either to admit he has a situation to manage, rather than treating the public like children with the claim that the Debono affair is a Labour creation.

Actually, that might niggle the MP even more, making Gonzi's 2010 harder still.