We might die of boredom

It has come to pass precisely as I predicted. The no confidence vote in the Transport Minister that passed by the skin of its teeth last Friday is being followed up by a confidence vote in the government. It is essential that this is done and it is just as essential that, this time round, there are to be no shenanigans or histrionics. At this juncture of history, melodramas of this sort are the last things we need. Thinking of the precarious state of the eurozone alone is enough.

The public transport system leaves much to be desired and, yes, it deserves the criticism it got and is still getting but not at the cost of destabilising the government. The country is not ready for an election to start with. Snap elections are just not healthy, no matter which party calls them; remember 1998. Elections are as destructive to the economy as they are essential to the continuation of the democratic process. Frankly, they are a colossal inconvenience.

I hear a sharp intake of breath. Well, think about all recent elections. The country just stops functioning as Malta and his wife wait, petrified in all senses, to see which way the cat is going to jump. With most key posts given to political appointees who, by law, have to tender their resignation before the election and act as caretakers during and after the election campaign, the uncertainty of their precarious position perforce reflects on the entities that they run, which is why I am convinced that posts like this should be given to apolitical technocrats and experts with the consent of both parties. In that way, continuity and long-term planning will be assured. We cannot afford to upset apple carts every five years. It is just as if we are taking five steps forward and three back! Only in this way will the country continue to function during the seismic convulsions that are part and parcel of an election.

To get back to last Friday’s cliffhanger, the fact that a sizeable anti-Gatt demonstration was taking place while the debating was going on speaks volumes. We are not by nature a people that like demonstrating in the streets unless there are pastizzi and qassatat, fireworks and bands and lots to gossip about as well. There were Austin Gatt’s supporters too who, most amusingly, hailed him as a lion when he emerged smiling sheepishly from what must have been a gruelling and embarrassing experience where the Prime Minister personally had to stick his own neck out to save his, Dr Gatt’s! So if Dr Gatt is a lion, what on earth is the Prime Minister? Far from being the king of beasts, I would say that Lawrence Gonzi is too good a man to be put into such an unenviable position by his own MPs and ministers. The Leader of the Opposition is, believe you me, far more gentlemanly in his approach than some Nationalist MPs!

Frankly, till the very last minute, I did not think that Friday’s vote would materialise as I imagined that the correct thing to do would have been for Dr Gatt to resign his post and the Prime Minister to accept it and announce a Cabinet reshuffle.

The editorial of The Times on Friday outlined just such a course but it seems that, in the mounting excitement, nobody read it. Had this happened, Dr Gatt would have long been bundled off to some wonderful public relations crash course in the US of A and we would have had no teatrini about lions.

As it turned out Friday’s drama changed nothing and with Dr Gatt still blaming it all on Arriva I can imagine that we will shortly be presented with a couple of scapegoats who, like sacrificial lambs, will have to take all the pent up resentment poured on their heads while Malta fiddles and Europe burns.

Maybe because we are an island, we are unable to look out of the window at the world around us and, even if we do, what is going on out there is simply too far away to affect us. There is no country anywhere across the water from us wherein everything is hunky-dory and wherein things go tickety-boo; not one!

The Iberian peninsula is in a precarious state while Italy... well, Italy... when was Italy ever stable? Greece is about to sink and pull the entire eurozone down with it while in the Middle East, Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco, the Arab Spring shows no signs of becoming a peaceful summer with ordinary people like you and I demonstrating and giving their lives up to attain freedoms that we in “blessed, blessed Malta” take for granted.

There are limits. I dream of a Malta where good governance replaces politics and wherein people can get on with their lives without having to put up with radical and painful upheavals because of party politics.

I would like to have elections that are not nightmares from which there is no awakening. I would like to see this tiny island comparable in population to a Nile city nobody has ever heard of called Asyut, to be run without political dramas by people who are working for the greater good and who are fully accountable. But then, who knows, we might actually die of boredom!

kzt@onvol.net