Politburo-style tactics

In Marxist Leninist states, not only was the party seen as the vanguard of the people but almost invariably the party informally led the state. In Malta under GonziPN last week we experienced a rather bizarre situation where the PN made it clear that it intended to solve a purely parliamentary problem and or issue within the confines of party headquarters. Even more so, possibly and arguably, in the absence of the person who last week denied them their ruling majority.

While admittedly all eyes last Sunday were on the Nationalist Party’s general council, the piecemeal and makeshift solution that Lawrence Gonzi came up with proved to be no solution at all. It did not bring the GonziPN government any closer to addressing or solving its problem of governability and stability, in terms of securing a workable parliamentary majority that can be at once both durable and permanent.

How far the general council was from the hyped up expectations can be seen by gauging the “solution” proposed by GonziPN after comparing it and contrasting it with the alternate scenarios many political analysts had been actively pursuing and predicting.

On the day proper of the council a leading editor in chief of an independent newspaper said that the following were the leading questions that one expected to be addressed during the morning session: whether the PN will call a general election; whether it will meet Franco Debono’s demands in the middle; whether it will demand the resignation of the “rebel” MP; whether Dr Debono will turn up at Pietà for the council meeting; and whether the PN would take a number of unspecified “internal initiatives”?

In actual fact none of these predicted scenarios materialised.

All that we were told was that Dr Gonzi proposed a leadership contest where he will be a candidate. Rather than offering his resignation. Whether he will be contested or not still needs to be seen but all indications not only suggest that he is likely to run on his own but also that he will be overwhelmingly approved by his councillors.

In doing so the PN will have missed one important point. That at a time when they are trying to discard the dysfunctional GonziPN package and concept due to the erratic and counterproductive manner in which it has operated these last four years, in reconfirming Dr Gonzi they will be merely breathing new life into a political corpse (I am obviously saying so in purely allegorical terms and not on a personal basis regarding the Prime Minister who remains a parliamentary colleague, no matter what my reservations about his political conduct might be).

I have dared to draw parallels between the Soviet era style of government in the former Communist countries, because it is now evident that after having long blurred any distinction between the PN and the Executive, we have now seen a bizarre situation morph whereby Dr Gonzi is flagrantly refusing to make any distinction between his position as leader of the PN and his role as PM.

He is anchored to the past, as he as PM cannot detach himself from the party.

Alas, what he does in the party is his business. But what he does at the helm of the country is the people’s business too.

The bottom line is pure and simple. If or rather when he is reconfirmed as leader of his party, only Nationalist councillors will have voted. While on the other hand governments are elected by the people as a whole.

Through his gimmicky, quick-fix solution GonziPN is making it clear that he just cannot – or rather flagrantly refuses – to understand the institutional role of a PM while making a hotchpotch of the whole sad and miserable saga.

Without wanting to, rather than providing the country with the much needed stability that it urgently requires, he is merely buying himself an extended life line in the hope that the PN can regain some lost ground through the powers of incumbency while hopefully getting its party machine and act together by the time May or the Fall come along.

A mere look at the background logo when Dr Gonzi addressed the media flanked by Tonio Borg and Paul Borg Olivier was that they ditched the GonziPN logo and revived the PN logo.

Once Dr Gonzi is reconfirmed they will have done themselves a further disservice, by not having moved the country one inch ahead in trying to dig itself out of the hole it had previously dragged itself into, thanks to GonziPN’s mismanagement of its own parliamentary group.

At day’s end not only will the country remain in an utter state of political confusion, but the PN itself will remain facing a dead end.

Dr Gonzi’s gimmicky behaviour is so ill judged that with one blow he will have left the country, the government and the party itself in a state of political limbo.

Meanwhile if further proof were needed of the Soviet-styled manner in which the PN has been conducting its business of late all you have to do is recall that when the PM addressed the media after the vote of no-confidence last Thursday he refused to take any questions from the media.

While last Sunday before moving his proposal, none of the delegates or councillors present were given any opportunity to take the podium to air their views.

Brincat.leo@gmail.com

www.leobrincat.com

The author is a Labour member of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Foreign and European Affairs.