Hijacking the Bill from Parliament

Joseph Muscat, upon becoming leader of the Labour Party, with the unfair support of the party’s machine, as confirmed by the other contestants, declared that he favours divorce legislation and intended to present a Private Member’s Bill on this issue when he becomes Prime Minister!

To the surprise of many, Nationalist MP Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando hijacked Dr Muscat’s proposition when, last year, he presented his own Private Member’s Bill without even having the decency to inform the Nationalist Party’s parliamentary group.

It is important to mention here that, despite this, the PN executive committee discussed Dr Pullicino Orlando’s proposed divorce motion and concluded that, as a party holding Christian values, the PN should oppose the introduction of divorce in Malta.

Furthermore, the Prime Minister had also assured Dr Pullicino Orlando that his private Bill will be presented to Parliament before the end of this year and declared that he will be giving a free vote to Nationalist MPs when the Bill is presented to Parliament.

The hijacking of the Labour leader’s proposal did not go down well with Dr Muscat and a few months later it became known that former Labour minister Evarist Bartolo was joining Dr Pullicino Orlando in his crusade to introduce divorce legislation. This led to the second hijacking of the divorce Bill, this time from the Labour side, with the result that Dr Pullicino Orlando withdrew his motion and the joint divorce Bill was presented to the House.

In the meantime, a number of Labour MPs had declared they were against the introduction of divorce in Malta and one of them insisted that, as a Catholic person, he will vote against divorce even if he will be the only person to do so.

Despite this, Dr Muscat stated that he will also be giving a free vote to his MPs. However, the Maltese saying bejn il-kliem u l-fatti hemm baħar jikkumbatti proved to be very factual because when the time came, Dr Muscat pulled the carpet from under his parliamentarians’ feet and the promise of a free vote blew away with the wind.

To the surprise of many, the PL presented a motion in Parliament stating inter alia that before the joint Bill be discussed in the House there should be a popular referendum to decide whether or not the people are in favour of divorce. The motion had requested that Parliament should discuss it with urgency and the referendum be held within a few days. It was only through the insistence of Lawrence Gonzi that Dr Muscat accepted that the referendum be held on May 28.

It soon became apparent that Dr Muscat’s change of mind to opt for a referendum was because he had failed to persuade those Labour MPs who were against divorce to toe the party line despite the fact that he had given them “a free vote” and this confirmed that, as usual, Dr Muscat’s promises are not worth even a pinch of salt.

To overcome this situation, the Labour leader called his MPs individually and convinced them that for the party’s sake they should – read must – sign his/her approval of the referendum motion, which included a loaded question favouring the yes vote.

The leader of the party must have been very persuasive since those MPs who had declared they were against divorce signed the PL’s proposed motion and this included the staunch Catholic member who had declared in this newspaper that if there were only to be one single vote against divorce that will be his.

The above confirms that Dr Muscat’s motto that the end justifies the means has once more triumphed, so much so it has been said that a PL spokesman has already declared that the party is heading to a great victory in this referendum and this augurs well for the coming general election in two years’ time.