Why Lawrence Gonzi did a Sant

The political issue about the transport debacle that has gripped the local scene these past two weeks and was de­bated in Parliament on Friday does not concern personalities.

Why didn’t the Prime Minister accept Debono’s suggestion that he call a vote of confidence, only to change his mind after the vote was taken?- Lino Spiteri

The names of Minister Austin Gatt and Nationalist MP Franco Debono could have been any other names. The issue is about political best practice. Political accountability (res­pon­sibility) is a deeply embedded principle in true democracies. Ministers individually and the government as a whole, are accountable to Parliament and thereby to the people.

In well-functioning democracies ministers are responsible both for what they do personally as well as for what happens of substantial significance in their portfolio departments and public entities. Malta is a democracy, but the practice of personal responsibility has not so far been tested. As reminded by Austin Bencini in The Times last Thursday, article 79(2) of the Constitution provides for collective responsibility.

The article states that the Cabinet shall have the general direction and control of the government and shall be collectively responsible to Parliament. The opposition motion regarding Gatt was not based on collective responsibility, but on the individual responsibility of the minister regarding the debacle in the public transport change.

Although the minister for a long time shied away from acknowledging that he was politically responsible for the disastrous implementation of the new transport system, he finally seemed to do so under the pressure arising out of the declaration made by Debono that he would abstain on the opposition motion vote.

Gatt’s determination to stay away from political responsibility even led him to say he was baffled why he should be blamed. In due course, as Debono remained adamant, Gatt’s bafflement ebbed, but he had been held politically responsible by public opinion long before that.

It could not be otherwise. Gatt had been manifestly in charge of the transport change. He had worked hard at it. With the very substantial public funds made available to him he negotiated with the bus owners under the old system into reluctant agreement. He was in the frontline of the successful negotiations with Arriva, the new operators.

Throughout, he led, as was his ministerial duty. At the end, with the new system about to start, he self-proclaimed revolutionary success.

It was not his or Transport Malta’s fault that the new service began disastrously when scores of drivers did not report for work. Still, in the following weeks it quickly transpired, to the chagrin of bus passengers, and of taxpayers, that the Transport Malta part of the venture was a shambles, so much so that 79 per cent of the new routes eventually had to be changed. Transport Malta was responsible for that part, under Gatt’s political responsibility.

In any politically mature country, heads would have rolled. Certainly at Transport Authority level, but Gatt did not accept the resignation of the responsible executive, let alone sack him. The Prime Minister also said he had not accepted Gatt’s offer to resign.

He did not elaborate how that offer was made. He did say, on the eve of Friday’s debate as Debono was being cajoled and pressured to vote with the government, that the transport decision was collectively taken by the Cabinet. The implication was that Friday’s vote was to be one of confidence in the government.

Former Labour Prime Minister Alfred Sant, at least, had been direct in 1998. He put it to Cabinet, who agreed that the Cottonera motion was to be one of confidence, meaning that if the motion did not pass he would advise the President to call an early general election.

I do not think Sant was constitutionally correct – no collective or even individual responsibility was involved. But he was blunt in the way he tried to exert pressure on Dom Mintoff.

This time round, when did the Prime Minister decide to make the issue one of collective responsibility, in the knowledge that if Debono did not vote there was the likelihood that the Speaker would save the government with his casting vote, though humiliating it in the process?

Why didn’t the Prime Minister accept Debono’s suggestion that he call a vote of confidence immediately afterwards, which Debono would have voted for since his issue was not with the collective government, only to change his mind after the vote was taken and Debono did abstain?

Gatt gave a strong clue. It was he who went to the executive of the Nationalist Party armed with the minutes of the Cabinet meeting at which he had given a long presentation about the new transport system, which the Cabinet then approved.

Translating politically, Gatt put it to the Prime Minister and his peers that they were as responsible as he was, ridiculously so even for the details of the routes drawn up by Transport Malta, which Gatt arrogantly called too avant garde for the populace.

Never mind that a new question is left hanging – was Gatt ethically correct to reveal Cabinet minutes to a partisan group within the PN, or was he in breach of proper practice? Perhaps the Prime Minister will get round to answering that. Meanwhile, the government remains in great turbulence. That is not say it should resign. It does means that its credibility is in tatters.

What of Debono? He will be pilloried by die-hard Nationalists. But students of politics might come to understand that, not only was he not after personal gain – he must know he probably has no political future left – he put fresh shine on an old principle.

Coincidentally, the Economist last week recalled that the liberal philosopher Edmund Burke (considered to be the founder of Conservatism), had given a blunt warning to the Bristol constituents who had just elected him to Parliament two centuries ago.

If they had opinions, Burke said, he would be pleased to hear them. But he would not be Bristol’s envoy to Parliament, nor take instructions from his electors. At Westminster, he would deliberate in the national interest, not theirs.