Lino Spiteri, a minister in Dom Mintoff's 1981 administration, says in an opinion piece in The Times today that Joseph Muscat's comparison between the political situation in 1981 and the current situation, 'does not hold'.
Dr Muscat said recently that Labour was “morally and politically incorrect” to govern in 1981, when it earned the majority of parliamentary seats but not the votes.
Mr Spiteri defended the circumstances leading to the 1981 government being formed in the wake of the controversial election result.
In his piece, Mr Spiteri wrote:
The past rarely can and never should be forgotten. It remains there to learn from, especially not to repeat mistakes. Remembering, though, should be done in context. Otherwise recalls carried forward will be warped. The Labour leader gave an example of that when he compared the present situation in Parliament, where the government could not muster enough elected MPs to defeat an opposition no-confidence motion, to the perverse result of the 1981 general election, and its aftermath.
The comparison does not hold. On several counts. This government was elected with a relative majority, if a very slim one exceeded by the combined votes of the Labour Party and Alternattiva Demokratika. In 1981 the Nationalist Party received an absolute majority of votes, but a minority of parliamentary seats.
Fact was, though, that could happen. It happened notwithstanding that earlier Prime Minister Dom Mintoff had reduced the margin by which electoral districts could vary from each other by 15 per cent to five per cent. After the perverse 1981 result, Mr Mintoff formed a government, as he was constitutionally obliged to do. But he also set in motion a committee from both sides of the House to seek a more correct way forward.
It failed to reach agreement. In due course, though, it was the Labour Cabinet, even if after much internal conflict, as I have touched upon in my book of political memories, which came up with amendments to the Constitution to introduce a corrective mechanism to ensure that if a party received an absolute majority of votes, but a minority of seats, it was allocated extra seats to enable it to govern, with a majority of one.
Nationalist claims that the 1987 result was due to gerrymandering, playing about with electoral boundaries, were blown apart in 1996 when it was the Labour Party which, after nine years of Nationalist government, received a majority of votes but a minority of seats. Such a result remains possible to this day because the parties have not agreed on further amendments to ensure proportionality. We have a sensible system to cover local elections, where the whole of the localities contested form one constituency, but not for general elections.
Context, however, goes back a decade before 1981. The Nationalist government then in office played about with the electoral districts for the general election of 1971. That still did not prevent the MLP from getting an absolute majority of votes and a majority of seats. Nevertheless the mouthpiece of the Nationalist Party, in-Nazzjon, immediately declared editorially that the PN had a majority of seats in the majority of electoral districts and was entitled to govern, and that was what it intended to do. It was only the solidity of the Labour government that prevented the implication from becoming reality.
Labour increased its electoral majority in 1976. Still, between 1976 and 1981 the Nationalists offered the most negative form of opposition ever seen in Malta. In due course, a bombing campaign began, targeting government buildings and individuals who helped the MLP to govern.
That context is sad to recall. But recall it one must. As one should also recall that, between 1981 and 1987, when Labour again did not muster a majority, a number of Labour thugs and police officials disgraced all that Labour stood for with their unchecked behaviour. I still believe that small band included individual mercenaries planted by Nationalist elements. But it was up to the government leadership to keep that minority in check. They did not.
That fuller context of the 1970s and 1980s should not be forgotten as we now look forward and move on. Looking forward means experiencing the clash and contrast of opposing ideas without recourse to physical or moral violence and personal attacks, with focus on true democracy, not just the bits of it that suit us.
In the current circumstances it also means getting out of the prevailing uncertainty, through either a clear restoration of the Nationalist government’s elected majority in the House of Representatives, or an early general election to end the debilitating uncertainty, and return to stability.
Looking forward also means playing out the democratic game seriously, and not in a manner that puts the Don Camillo goings on to shame.