If politics be the art of the possible, then the Prime Minister has nearly done the impossible through the introduction of parliamentary assistants in our constitutional set-up. Lawrence Gonzi managed to keep a small and manageable Executive on the one hand while managing to revitalise the harmony between the parliamentary group and the Executive lead by him.
Keeping partisan sentiments apart, it should be widely welcomed that the government's stability at this very delicate of moments is assured allowing the Prime Minister and the entire government to concentrate fully on economic recovery, which perhaps might allow our country to weather successfully the storm of the worst international economic recession since the 1930s.
The measure is also welcome in that it addresses the feeling often expressed by many backbenchers over many legislatures for the need of a greater dialogue with frontbenchers. Having a member of Parliament with the sole responsibility of ensuring a real and effective line of communication between the Executive and the parliamentary group is to be welcomed from the constitutional aspect. It is an experiment that is to be followed closely to see if the manner in which it develops will live up to these high institutional expectations.
A number of political pundits have given a more cynical interpretation to the matter, namely one in which Dr Gonzi's concern was solely to muzzle the appointees to the role of parliamentary assistants. This view leaves me pretty cold since, for it to have any logical sense, it would have meant that the Prime Minister appoints the entire parliamentary group as parliamentary assistants! In fact, one may ask why did the same pundits not raise a similar objection when the Leader of the Opposition had just done that in July of 2008, when, as the newly-appointed leader of the Labour Party, he had appointed his first shadow cabinet. Realising the trauma through which his party had gone through in the immediate aftermath of the 2008 electoral defeat and the deep divisions caused by the hard-fought leadership contest that ensued immediately after the general election, Joseph Muscat decided to appoint all his MPs members of the shadow cabinet with the natural exception of the outgoing leader, Alfred Sant.
Therefore, not counting the present and the former leader of the Labour Party, 32 MPs were detailed to shadow a Nationalist Cabinet made up of only eight ministers making it an average of four Labour MPs to everyone Nationalist minister!
Admittedly, the task of defining the exact areas of action for each of the 32 members of the shadow Cabinet was not an easy one and required imagination. In fact, the need was felt to appoint a very senior member of the shadow Cabinet, Karmenu Vella, to chair a co-ordinating committee of all the other shadow members.
While the extreme measure of having the entire Labour parliamentary group forming the shadow Cabinet would serve the function of keeping the minds of the Labour parliamentary group occupied when in opposition, however, the Leader of the Opposition might live to regret his generous handing of roles should Labour win the next election. Surely, Dr Muscat would have of necessity to "demote" quite a good number of the all-inclusive shadow Cabinet, making them resume the more mundane role of a "backbencher".
It might be argued with some conviction that, once in power, it might be more tolerable to live in the hope of high office than to have a shadow function when in opposition. However, unfortunately for Dr Muscat, the recent events within the Nationalist parliamentary group may put more than a certain doubt on the matter.
No doubt, the MPs not selected to form part of the Cabinet or to fill the post of parliamentary secretaries might, with more than some justification, remind Dr Muscat that this time it might be wise to take a leaf out of Dr Gonzi's book on the Art of Managing Backbenchers and to maintain the parliamentary practice of appointing parliamentary assistants himself since, after all, what is wrong in involving a number of parliamentarians to keep the lines of communication between the various ministries and Parliament itself?