When Anġlu Farrugia was nominated Speaker of the House of Representatives, the Leader of the Opposition Simon Busuttil immediately said his side did not agree with the nomination. He felt the Prime Minister could have identified one of his backbench MPs, given the whopping majority enjoyed by Labour in the House.
That was not an unreasonable position for the Opposition to take. The Prime Minister stuck to his decision. Farrugia was appointed Speaker, a position he chose to hold on a full-time basis.
That was the cue for the Opposition leader to make another statement. He said the Opposition continued to disagree with the Government, but it would show respect towards Farrugia as Speaker.
The first test of such respect came, and Busuttil showed exactly what he meant by his solemn declaration.
The Speaker ruled, on a point raised by the Prime Minister, that there was a prima facie breach of privilege by the Leader of the Opposition. While setting in motion the procedure that follows such a decision he urged the two sides to find an amicable solution moving forward.
Farrugia had barely finished giving his ruling when Busuttil shrieked that this was an attack on freedom of speech, and led the Nationalist MPs who were in the House in a noisy walkout.
Walkouts are part and parcel of parliamentary practice, and this was not the first time one took place at the behest of the Opposition. Nor will it be the last.
But the walkout was in protest against the Speaker. In brief, the Leader of the Opposition and his diminished troops did not respect his ruling.
They did not have to agree with it, in which case there are several ways to make that clear. The Opposition rather obviously had decided on its tactic before the Speaker pronounced himself.
As if that was not enough, the Opposition is trying to humiliate the Speaker by requesting him to change his ruling.
This is a foretaste of things to come. The early months of Busuttil as Nationalist leader had not breathed much wind in Nationalist sails. Grass roots and higher Nationalists began saying openly that they had bought a puppy – the leader was weaker than the Nationalists’ weak position justified.
The Opposition rather obviously had decided on its tactic before the Speaker pronounced himself
Busuttil’s response to that was to toughen up. He is criticising all that the Government is doing, shielding himself with the claim that it is his political right to disagree.
Of course it is. And God forbid that anyone should try to impinge on that right.But disagreeing intelligently is one thing. Disagreeing like programmed robots is something else.
Nevertheless, this was expected. All oppositions are negative. Past Nationalist oppositions have outdone Labour in demonstrating this. I, for one, expected Busuttil to be as negative as can be.
That stage has already been reached, and I see it as good for the Government. For one thing, it will not let the Labour Government rest easy on its huge majority.
By cracking the whip, the Nationalist Opposition will not hurt the Opposition. It will simply keep it awake to its responsibilities, to the heat and mud of politics.
What would be worrying in the Opposition’s negative stance would be if it took the form of hurting Malta, not the Government itself. The Nationalists are clearly trying to do that by converting every Labour action as an attack on democracy.
The Nationalist’s attack on the Speaker is the most evident anti-democratic action in Parliament so far. The Opposition seems to be giving a new interpretation to freedom of speech. Such freedom does not mean one has a licence to misinterpret, even to lie. It does not mean that anything goes. Freedom and responsibility go together.
This will be one feature of our political play in the coming five years. The Nationalists will try to keep up their followers’ spirits by hampering everything the Government seeks to do.
So far there have been no big issues. Beating the drums on appointments sounds hypocritical when one remembers how the Nationalists made their appointments.
Beating the drum on a manoeuvre, now out in the open, to have John Dalli tried – Dalli, more of a Nationalist than any bunch of five current Opposition MPs tied together – is another.
An effort to undermine public confidence in the country’s main institutions, such as the Police and their Commissioner, starts raising the level of the attacks on the practice of democracy.
The Government will have to reply to all that without getting lost in the Nationalists’ tricky games.
If oppositions must oppose, governments must govern. The Labour Government cannot gift the Nationalist Opposition with valid reasons to attack it undemocratically. It is part of the Prime Minister’s remit to marshal his team so that does not happen.
It is part of his wider remit to govern the country such that there is good economic management, out of which growth will come, and hence the tools to improve our society. That is a more serious requirement than joining in the Opposition’s daily games.