Official script for political division

President George Abela’s inaugural speech to Parliament last Saturday raised justifiable concerns.

He opened the 12th legislature by saying that the “age of arrogant leadership” was over and concluded by remarking that the general election result had shown that the people were “ready to come together to make the right decisions for the country”.

He bookended his speech by saying: “The Government is convinced that ‘Malta is for all’ is now with us,” directly citing the Labour Party’s election slogan.

It is pertinent to highlight that it is not uncommon for the President to deliver a somewhat partisan speech at the inauguration of a new Parliament.

In 1987, Acting President Paul Xuereb, a Labour appointee, had to go through the unenviable task of reading a politically-loaded address.

It should also be noted that President’s role is merely to deliver the Government’s five-year vision. He does not write the speech. That is in the hands of the Office of the Prime Minister.

The Maltese model is borrowed from Westminster where the Queen always attends the first sitting. But her speech normally relays best wishes for the good work of Parliament and measures are taken to ensure she is not caught up in any partisanship.

Dr Abela’s speech contained too many divisive elements and certainly flies in the face of the message of unity that Labour’s Malta For All slogan was intended to portray. It only rubs salt into the wounds of many who have been questioning whether appointments made by the Government the past month are in line with that electoral cry.

The President is expected to always rise above partisan politics, so would it have been out of line if Dr Abela had objected to reading out certain statements? Or is the Head of State in Malta considered, for this occasion at least, as little more than a spokesman for the Government?

Statements like “Malta does not belong to a clique” had no place in the speech that marked the opening of Parliament.

To make matters worse, the speech contained a number of barbs, both direct and indirect, against Lawrence Gonzi, the very man who broke with tradition and appointed a President from an opposing political camp in 2009.

It was also a speech shorn of significant plans on how to continue building the economy, the most basic tenet of our country’s success.

Instead, we were treated to a shopping list of legislative agenda about the way the Government wants to split up the Malta Environmental and Planning Authority and its plans to go for “aggressive investment” in solar and other renewable energy sources to make up for the previous Administration’s “failure”. Why should the President be talking about issues like tablet computers and the introduction of a law regulating the identification of transgender people? There are all important matters but do they really belong in an address that marks the opening of Parliament?

The Nationalist Party was right in saying the speech should have focused on unity and not on partisan slogans that undermine such an important occasion for Parliament. And ultimately, it does no good to the Presidency itself.

The country is faced with two options other than the status quo: either to ensure there are no partisan statements in a speech read out by the Head of State; or change the format to do away with the President on such an occasion so that the Prime Minister delivers a message of his choosing.