One seat should be enough

It is difficult to envisage justifiable circumstances where Malta’s two main political parties should be allowed by the electorate to amend the Constitution in such a manner so as to rule out the possibility of a one-seat majority.

Doing so is likely to be a perversion of representative democracy, and guaranteeing the victorious party a minimum three-seat majority would be tantamount to rubber-stamping elective dictatorship.

Such a move may suit the Nationalist and Labour parties, but it certainly does not suit the people who vote them into office. Malta’s party system means things are very much slanted in favour of the big two in any case, and it is wholly unnecessary to aggravate the situation.

So long as the electoral boundaries are properly drawn and providing that all the norms of an electoral process are observed – unlike cases in the more distant past – the majority of the government of the day should reflect the number of votes that party obtained.

No party should have some kind of divine right to govern comfortably. And various administrations in our recent history have had to manage such a state of affairs. It happened in 1971 as well as in the post-1987 government, which achieved more for Malta than any other administration – proving Winston Churchill’s maxim that “one is enough”.

There is nothing intrinsically wrong with a one-seat majority. On the contrary, it can keep a government on its toes. The lesson for parties is to ensure that the candidates they choose are all willing – as Franco Debono apparently was in his thesis but not once he was elected – to remain loyal to the party or to leave in the event of disagreement.

None of this precludes them from airing views on particular topics – we would be much the poorer as a democracy if they did not; however, there is a way that should be done. This is not United States, where every Congressman and Senator fights for himself under the loose guise of a party label. It is Malta, where politicians are elected less for who they are than what they represent.

Dom Mintoff may not have been justified for effectively bringing down the government in 1998, but at least he was canny enough not to cross the line himself. And he had his fair share of regret over the consequences of his actions.

The 1998 incident has since haunted him, not least because he saw some of those who had been his most ardent supporters turning against him, though any suggestion that anyone – let alone someone from the Nationalist Party – could have any bearing on his mindset at the time displays a blazing ignorance of the former Prime Minister, who has only ever done what he saw fit.

Dr Debono is taking this extreme line because of what he claims he sees fit. The inescapable reality, of course, is that he is one of a very small minority who views the consequences of his actions as justifiable.

However, he must now be forced by the public to make a stark choice: either reach a permanent compromise or vote against his government in the opposition’s motion of no confidence this week.

The middle way, or procrastinating, is not an acceptable option. And if he chooses this course, the Prime Minister should put an end to the misery and call an immediate election.