Politics in the gutter
Lawrence Gonzi would have been better off holding the election last March, rather than permitting a situation that has allowed a few MPs to hijack the country’s agenda with their nauseating pursuit of self interest for months on end.
The Prime Minister did not call an election for one reason and it had nothing to do with the so-called national interest: it was not deemed to be in the Nationalist Party’s interest.
Looking at things strictly from an electoral point of view, perhaps his assessment was correct to an extent, given that Labour would today be in power since the PN is likely to have suffered defeat.
The opinion polls had suggested things were so bad that they could only get better. However, in many ways they have actually got worse.
While the PN has made little headway in the polls – other than its ability, it seems, to attract first-time voters – the extent to which the party has been tearing itself apart in recent months has placed its longer-term electoral future in more danger.
Of more concern is the manner in which this has been happening. We have gone from a gratuitous attack on former Home Affairs Minister Carm Mifsud Bonnici to the bitterly personal and relentless pursuit by Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando, and Labour, of former EU ambassador Richard Cachia Caruana.
Neither Dr Pullicino Orlando nor the PL, save for a likely victory when the election actually does happen – and it should take place by the autumn – have emerged well from this. The former Nationalist MP has made one outlandish claim after another – from 10 MPs being prepared to vote against Mr Cachia Caruana to the former EU ambassador colluding with PL figures in 1996 to further his own interests – and systematically failed to substantiate a single one of them.
All the while, more information has emerged about the knowledge he had denied possessing about the Mistra scandal which erupted during the 2008 electoral campaign. On the basis of Gordon Pisani’s uncontested revelations last week alone he should have departed the political scene. Instead he has remained, quite bizarrely, as some sort of hybrid MP.
Labour, meanwhile, has not only colluded with the MP – its suggestion that it has not insults basic intelligence – but it has itself licked the bottom of a murky barrel in the process.
The release by the party of illicit recordings of Mr Cachia Caruana in private or off-the-record conversation with a journalist already raises ethical questions – ones the opposition had answered unequivocally if entirely differently when e-mails were leaked about his private exchanges with a journalist sometime last year.
Yet worse than this is the spin attached to what Mr Cachia Caruana said: that he implicated former ministers Lawrence Gatt and Guido de Marco, and perhaps even his then boss Eddie Fenech Adami, in his attempted murder.
This is a heinous distortion of Mr Cachia’s Caruana laments over a tragic event in his life – as he probed in his own mind what might have been if certain, remote conversations had or had not taken place. It has also caused needless pain to Prof. de Marco’s family.
If this is progressive politics, it should be of little wonder if young, educated people want to have nothing to do with it. Indeed, it is surprising that anyone wants to have anything to do with politics given the way certain politicians are behaving.
Gozo’s most famous occasional resident, Scottish actor and comedian Billy Connolly, once urged people not to vote for politicians because it only encourages them. We are living in an age where he has been proved right.
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Emanuel Farrugia
Jul 22nd 2012, 19:51
Dear Editor, let him govern if that is what he wants. I just hope for the sake of ALL of us the. Buck stops with the Hon. Prime Minister. Even though he is faced by several The Times Editorials, he still remains adamant. So there must be some larger reason why he will not call a General Election.
GL Calleja
Jul 22nd 2012, 15:55
Hopefully this turmoil will stop the " Business as usual " politics. Our politics and some of our politicians are old and archaic and must be brought into the 21st century. Maybe not everybody agrees with how JPO and FD are conducting themselves but our political system needed a wake up call and this is it. Dr Lawrence Gonzi fell asleep at the wheel and the young lions in his party, and the young leader of the opposition knew that. Somehow Dr Gonzi managed to use CMB as a sacrificial lamb in order to protect his other. He sat idly by why Air Malta got to a point of bankruptcy and then his "other" managed to create a huge fiasco with the introduction of Arriva. Dr Gonzi has to stop covering up for his incompetent Ministers and also pay more attention to the handling of the illegal immigration problem. One thing for sure, Dr Gonzi and the PN have their work cut out for them.
Victor Zammit
Jul 22nd 2012, 14:27
I wish for once the prime minister does not heed the editor’s advice, so oft repeated now. For the simple reason that what if an election returned a one seat majority, as it did in 1996 and in 2008, do we need to go to election every time there is controversy within the majority in parliament? Do we have to repeat the history of 1998? Consider, even on purely constitutional grounds and the doctrine of the separation of powers: the legislative, executive and judicial work separately. What happens within parliament is parliament’s; the administration (cabinet) goes on, and so does the judicial (law-courts). The only difference is that in our system, as in Westminster’s, but not in the USA, the majority in parliament renders the government of the day; if it falls so does the government in cabinet. But until that happens the administration is unaffected. The latter necessarily goes on in the national interest. It would have been a different matter had what is happening in parliament now were to take place among ministers in cabinet. I would have feared the latter the more. Which is why this government, any government for that matter, labour on. I wish we had the USA model. Not a pipe-dream perhaps, now that talk is on to amend the constitution.
John Azzopoardi
Jul 22nd 2012, 12:43
Right on............Rarely have a seen editorials being so pragmatic in my lifetime. Pragmaticm is cirtical in life and as a middle of the road voter, these editorials are right on.
ANTHONY PAVIA
Jul 22nd 2012, 12:23
Dear Editor, "collusion" is a very strong word to use, whichever side makes use of it. However, you are quite correct to assert that the Maltese nation needs to develop and mature, whether politically and/or otherwise.
Barney Camilleri
Jul 22nd 2012, 11:39
Sir,
I consider this editorial an exellent and truthful observation of Malta's political situation. Considering people are dismayed by both parties who really and truly do not have much to offer other more of the same. It is a pity that one person with a personal agenda will be turning a system that proved beneficial to the absolute majority to a one man band show.
Joseph's party interest is seeing the government out and nothing else. Lawrence party with such a weak political machine to back him, will be out.
If only we find an orator like Obama or who ever, he will carry the country for the next five years because the people are fed uo of both parties..
Eddy Privitera
Jul 23rd 2012, 11:22
Barney Camilleri: Speak for yourself ! How can you say: " the people are fed up of both parties " ? Do you mean they want AD then ??????
John Azzopoardi
Jul 24th 2012, 01:18
agree with Bareney. No we don't want AD, but Mr. Priviteria, the honeymoon for the PL will surely get elected next time, will not be long. All politics are dirty and they only come begging once they get our vote. Once the election is over, they act like dictators and they keep screaming that what they are doing is part of the electoral manifesto. Of course,in today's EU world, both PL and PN leaders hands are tied as Brussels dictates what must be done.
Please choose the reason of your report below: