Parliamentary wrangling 'ugly but not exceptional'

A President Emeritus and two former ministers have played down the possibility of Parliament facing protracted gridlock after the rumpus that erupted in the wake of last week's vote on the power station contract.

The House proceeded according to the agenda last night after the minutes of the previous sitting were approved without contest.

This was in sharp contrast to what happened on Monday when the opposition raised numerous technical points, which led to an interminable debate on parliamentary procedure, the interpretation of standing orders and the correction of minutes.

As a result, all work before the House had to be postponed including the emergency Bill to provide loan financing to Greece as part of a eurozone deal.

For former Nationalist minister Michael Falzon, the incident did not come as a surprise and he insisted the confrontational atmosphere in Parliament would be short-lived.

"A long-term view of parliamentary life shows these things do happen occasionally, especially when there is a hot debate. I am not favourably impressed by what happened but I am not surprised," Mr Falzon said.

With a strong hint of cynicism, he insisted the heated exchanges would probably continue for some days and weeks but everything would "die down until the next round of bickering on some other issue".

His assessment was reflected by President Emeritus Ugo Mifsud Bonnici, who said there had been similar uproars under both Labour and Nationalist administrations.

"What happened was ugly but it is not exceptional. In the 1920s, Gerald Strickland was renowned for the number of points of order he used to raise and rulings he demanded," Dr Mifsud Bonnici said.

Ruling out protracted paralysis of Parliament, former Labour minister Lino Spiteri said it was an "unhappy situation, which should never have happened".

"If the vote had gone against the government on Thursday it would not have been a vote of no confidence. The government would have been able to reverse the situation through a subsequent vote," Mr Spiteri said, underlining that a vote of no confidence was only linked to monetary matters and a deliberate no confidence motion.

The opposition stormed out of Parliament last Thursday night when the Speaker failed to call the vote on the power station extension contract after doubts were raised by Foreign Affairs Minister Tonio Borg on how Labour MP Justyne Caruana had voted.

Parliamentary Secretary Mario Galea had voted by mistake with the opposition, which meant the motion censuring the government on the contract would have been carried. However, when raising a point of order Dr Borg claimed Dr Caruana had voted against her own party.

The Speaker withdrew from the House to hear the recording of the procedure but Dr Caruana's vote declaration was not clear. He then ordered the vote be taken again. With the opposition MPs out of Parliament, the motion was defeated with 35 votes against and none in favour.

On Monday, all Labour MPs presented sworn declarations that they had heard Dr Caruana vote yes, however, attempts to change the minutes of Thursday's sitting were all voted down.