Advert

PN’s decision welcomed but late

Ban of the three MPs from contesting on party ticket considered a risky move while setting new challenges for the PM

The Nationalist Party executive committee’s unanimous decision to ban the three MPs who inflicted crisis after crisis on the government from running for election was expected and welcomed by many, particularly among core Nationalist voters.

However, many who felt the decision was good for the party still felt it was too late in the day and maybe not forceful enough. Some preferred outright expulsion.

It was also a risky move, if the PN still intended holding on to remain in office till the end of the legislature, which expires in the first half of next year.

Political analysts said the decision not to allow Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando, Jesmond Mugliett and Franco Debono to contest on a PN ticket was a clear sign the party “is fed up” with their manoeuvres and wanted to appear in control of the situation.

At the same time, the PN’s action set new challenges to Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi who, at the end of the day, had to decide when to blow the whistle and ask the electorate to pass judgement on hisgovernment’s performance.

“Politically, last Thursday’s decision was a good one for the Nationalist Party as I am sure it would bring back disgruntled Nationalists to the fold,” former Labour minister and columnist Lino Spiteri said.

“From Labour’s point of view, it depends on how the decision is seen by grassroot Nationalist voters and by the undecided and new voters,” he said.

Even for Noel Buttigieg Scicluna, a former diplomat and Nationalist MP in the early 1980s, the decision was a positive one.

“The PN’s decision was a natural one and a consequence of the decisions made by the three MPs to step outside the party’s Whip.”

Dr Buttigieg Scicluna said the PN also acted well when it concurrently approved a list of new candidates showing the party was still alive and kicking.

For Joe Friggieri, the punishment meted out to Dr Debono, Dr Pullicino Orlando and Mr Mugliett might have a different bearing on the three.

“Since Jesmond Mugliett and Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando had already made it clear they would not contest the forthcoming election, the PN’s decision affects Franco Debono more than the other two,” he said.

“There is a growing feeling among unbiased observers of the local political scene that the party should have accepted his resignation in January,” Prof. Friggieri said.

Others disagree. A PN insider, who asked not to be named, said that although Dr Pullicino Orlando and Mr Mugliett had announced their decision not to contest, they chose such path after coming to the logical conclusion they stood no chance of making it to Parliament again following their performance in this legislature.

“The significance of the PN executive committee’s decision is more in the message than the format. The PN is now formally telling the three MPs they’ve crossed the line and aren’t wanted by the PN any longer.”

Now that the PN’s third consecutive electoral mandate entered its last year, speculation is rife on whether Parliament will reconvene on October 1 or whether the Prime Minister will call an election after the PN’s traditional Independence celebrations in September.

The move evokes memories of the 1996 political situation, which may not be a good omen for the party as this was the last and only election when the PN failed to gain a majority of votes since 1976.

Sociologist Fr Joe Inguanez thinks the Nationalist executive’s decision will definitely impinge on the duration of this legislature.

“So far, one may assume that Parliament will reconvene in October and the government has some elbow room,” he said.

“However, it all depends on how many votes it will be able to muster in the House,” he said.

According to Fr Inguanez, one option can be the presentation of the next Budget on the very first sitting, asking Parliament for a crucial vote on a very concrete and extremely important Bill.

“This will actually be a vote of confidence or no-confidence,” he noted.

“This boils down to political strategy and this is the role of the PN’s political strategists and the Prime Minister’s closest advisers,” he said.

Dr Buttigieg Scicluna also thinks MPs will still be called in for work in October.

“For me, the election will still be held in spring 2013. At the end of the day, none of the Nationalist MPs, not even Dr Pullicino Orlando, Mr Mugliett or Dr Debono have the guts to topple the government. I think they’ve all made their calculations and won’t want to be remembered in the history books as being responsible for bringing down a Nationalist government.”

Lino Spiteri, who was an MP when Labour was forced out of power after merely 22 months in office in 1998, has a different take.

“It is a very confused situation and I doubt whether Parliament will be reconvened again,” he said.

“In the circumstances, it is very evident that an election could be announced before the end of Parliament’s summer recess.”

Joe Friggieri, on the other hand, feels the situation is still too fluid: “I think the Prime Minister is still keeping all his options open.”

“It is a very fluid situation and as Prime Minister, not just a leader of the party, Dr Gonzi might still want to see whether he can go ahead with parliamentary business in October and call an election only if this proves impossible.

“He didn’t say this in as many words but he seems to have implied it,” he said.

The PN executive will be meeting again on Tuesday, this time to hear “irrefutable” evidence that Dr Pullicino Orlando plans to present to support his claim that Richard Cachia Caruana, one of the PN’s longest standing strategists, colluded with the last Labour government.

Advert

64 Comments

Post comment

Please see our new Comments Policy

Comments are submitted under the express understanding and condition that the editor may, and is authorised to, disclose any/all of the above personal information to any person or entity requesting the information for the purposes of legal action on grounds that such person or entity is aggrieved by any comment so submitted.

At this time your comment will not be displayed immediately upon posting. Please allow some time for your comment to be moderated before it is displayed.

For more details please see our Comments Policy

Your User Profile is incomplete.
Please click here to complete your profile before posting comments.

George Azzopardi

Jul 15th 2012, 17:40

exactly

robert pace

Jul 15th 2012, 06:49

Allura ghax hazin ma tippruvax tirranga siehbi thalli kollox u tabdika hekk!!! Mela il labour ma ghddiex minnha u kien kapaci jirranga u illum ghandu partit maghqud habib.....

Mr Edward Caruana Galizia

Jul 14th 2012, 21:15

The PN are not holding on to power. They were voted into power fair and square by the people, something you PL supporters can't let go, especially since the PL was tipped to win the last election.

All that is happening is that three members of the PN have been trying to gain some limelight by causing a storm in a tea cup, and carrying out personal vendettas along the way. And they have all been egged on by the PL who think they stand to gain from all this.

Why doesn't the PL stop their desperate quest for power, clawing their way through whatever means possible, and just come up with some good ideas that will get them voted in? Why don't they just stop trying to bring down the government, which has behaved quite admirably throughout this whole fiasco, and accept that people will only vote for a dignified party and not one made up of ambitious and power hungry thugs from the past?

cesco di luigi

Jul 14th 2012, 16:46

Mhux ovvja jew!!!!!!!!!

Willie Grech

Jul 14th 2012, 17:01

@ Oliver Grech.

Are you serious?

1. " The party has discussed democratily and decided democtraticaly". Yes, by show of hands!! How democratic can that be???

2. "It shows that the party is not really attached to power." If your party is not attached to power, than a long time ago, it should have called for an early election. This saga has been going for far too long especially when, it is now officially stated by the government owned NSO that Malta is in a recession. We need a stable government (whoever that may be, even if it's another PN government) to cater for the problems ahead so as not to become another Greece or Spain or Portugal, etc, etc.

Oliver Grech

Jul 14th 2012, 19:52

Check JPOs comments after the meeting...he himself said he was given the time to speak.

If you want to quote NSO, go ahead and quote the figures of the last 4 years...when the world was in a recession including Spain, Greece, Cyprus and Iceland (the latter two you should know alot from your leader because he gave valid advices on them) and compare. Compare the unemployment rates to EU countries and compare them to US too. Compare the increases in taxes that were required in Spain, Italy, Portugal and see if there were any in our country.

Get all the data, jew ma jaqbillekx?

Willie Grech

Jul 14th 2012, 22:20

@ Oliver Grech.

If you really cared to read my piece, I was not talking about NSO's statements. I was talking about this pantomime organised by the PN. It is very worrying that a party in government is clinging to power when now we all know that our country is officially in a recession. That was my whole point. But now I realise that there are people out there, who are so blind folded by this saga that they simply do not read what they see before their eyes, but what they want to see.

Please take a look again at my piece before writing, jekk jaqbillek!!!!

m. borg (slm)

Jul 14th 2012, 16:55

Three months of ministerial wages are not peanuts and summer is the time they get invited to weddings my friend.

Johnny Xerri

Jul 14th 2012, 14:54

Very well said.

I mean what is more natural than voting PN...after all they only;

1. Gave us €1.16/week yet took €500/week.

2. Commissioned a power station operating on HFO @ a cost of €300 million...and before officially staring to operate is already planning on a gas change over wasting €150 million.

3. lied to hunters

4. lied to trappers

5. lied to fisherman

6. lied to farmers

7. impicitly lied to students

8. did not vote according to the will of the people re the divorce issue

Thassru l pajjiz...as if there is anything to ruin...even a nit-wit would perform better that gone-zi and his lapdogs

S Scerri

Jul 14th 2012, 15:08

Veru direzzjoni gol hajt. Kemm hawn min jghix fi pjaneta ohra. Hello this is Austin (Texas) calling , do you copy ?

Ms Jessica Spiteri

Jul 14th 2012, 15:47

Inhassru pajjiz? Il-pajjiz ilu imhasser! Aktar mohhom fil politka ta gewwa milli f'dik li ssahhah il pajjiz u l poplu! Billi tghid li jaghtu direzzjoni, ma jsfissirx li hija d-direzzjoni s-sewwa!

Henry Mifsud

Jul 14th 2012, 16:18

If you don't know where you are going any road will lead you there .... so vote PN haha

J. Muscat

Jul 14th 2012, 16:53

People like you make me have some faith in humanity once again. Kudos!

Mr Edward Caruana Galizia

Jul 14th 2012, 21:28

Perhaps you are right in many ways.

However, when you hear about how the PL, back in their golden days, treated the country and your loved ones so terribly, when you hear about the death threats, being forced to run away from your home, forced to have to live in a different country, the bombs, the shootings, the arrests for protesting against the PL, and all those other terrible ordeals that people had to go through back in the 80s, do you blame people for not wanting to vote for the PL ever in their lives, especially when they see the very same people being given positions within that party again?

How do you ignore their past actions and go back to thinking that voting is purely based on opinion of that party? Can you honestly say that you don't care about what these people did?

Sure the PN is not perfect. But their shortcomings are nothing compared to those of the PL.

victor bonello

Jul 14th 2012, 15:38

George what about the Gatt fiascos, do you not consider those enough harm to the party?

Willie Grech

Jul 14th 2012, 16:52

@ George Cutajar.

Stop throwing everything on Labour. Be a gentleman and admit that your party has fallen out to bits. People just do not accuse one another or fall out on each other for nothing. There is something much more than that. If three MPs, or more (remember the car running on a puncture?) were saying that this government is not performing well and they were left unheard, some of them felt that they should do something more. Some were 'accomodated' with a government post of some sorts, others were never satisfied. Either way, Labour never played a part in all this. If you keep saying that anyone from PN 'colluded' (what a buzzword this has become!), you will be admitting what a great person Joseph Muscat has already become, at an early stage of his political career already 'dictating matters' on the opposite side of parliament!!

'prudent stand?' No, never. PN knows that it cannot do away with the three MPs, whether you like it or not. A simple mathematical sum would immediately tell you that with immediate expulsion, parliamentary representation within PN would become 35 - 3 = 32 rappresentatives. Then it;s bye bye to majority. Or would it suit you just fine to say that the PN lost its majority just because of the three dissenting MPs and not because of its own faults?

d. attard

Jul 14th 2012, 12:50

I do not think that the strategists who led him to the cry strategy have any further influence on JPO so i do not expect a repeat

Franco Attard Trevisan

Jul 14th 2012, 12:37

I am of the same opinion

Mary Ann Borg

Jul 14th 2012, 14:52

Lawrence Fenech - Ghax ma tapplikax ghal kariga ta' konsulent tal Prim Ministru? Tidher li tifhem hafna int u l-pariri tieghek zgur li jiswew mitqlu deheb. Umbghad jekk ma tigix accettat bhala konsulent ta' Lawrence Gonzi, mur igri u applika ghall kariga ta konsulent ta' Joseph. Dak jaf jisma minnek.

Matthew Borg

Jul 14th 2012, 10:59

Better a confused chicken than a clueless one.

Your dear Labour Party, of course, falls into the latter category.

J Busuttil

Jul 14th 2012, 12:04

@ Joseph Brincat

Iva vera kemm inti bravu any chance of you being a PL star candidate.

A Trapani

Jul 14th 2012, 11:48

Andrew... too late now.... Franco had a few good ideas but really bad methods, besides, it is clear to all that you cannot expect to treaten your own party, your own government and attack your own fellow MPs, Ministers and Prime minister and at the same time expect to be cheered and clapped at. It is very obvious, that in a democracy, a so called rebel is expected to face the music and the party has done the least a democtratic party could have done in the circumstance. Now if Franco wants to use his energy, methods and "guts", nothing is stopping him from creating his own party like Norman Lowell did or join MLP who seem to have been loving his ways.

Joe Muscat

Jul 14th 2012, 12:28

@ A. Trapani

I agree with you but as far as I can see the bad methods were a product of how long it took the Prime minister to accept the good ideas.

Ms Maria Vella

Jul 14th 2012, 12:44

Franco Debono only had the courage to speak because of his own thirst for revenge against CMB - Dr. Debono is a perfect example of people who have their own personal interests at heart.

He is a disgrace!

Franco Attard Trevisan

Jul 14th 2012, 12:40

I see more turmoil then ever before

Mary Ann Borg

Jul 14th 2012, 15:01

Yes, and if the new party is as successful as AD, then they are all heading in one direction - oblivian. One cannot form a party with a bunch of wannabees, selfish and jeolous people who think only of themselves but try to make us believe that what they're doing is for the common good rather than to settle their personal vendettas for different reasons.
The best thing out of PN's decision is Johnny Dalli's removal from the candidates' list. He, together with FB, JPOS and Mugliett can now all go on Super One and continue to attack the Party they have all been evicted from the last few hours. Now its not their Party they will be attacking, because they no longer belong to its officials' list.

Advert
Advert