Writing his memoirs Eddie Fenech Adami found it necessary to indulge in speculation, (The Sunday Times of Malta, February 16). He speculates that “for all his belligerence” Dom Mintoff was sincere when he said there was a possibility of holding an early election (after the perverse result of 1981).
“I do not think he really wanted to remain in power without the backing of the majority of the electorate,” he writes.
“He might have been prepared to stay for six months or even a year, but my feeling was that deep down he wanted to go to the polls again for the sake of his pride.”
Within a couple of sentences, speculation led Fenech Adami into a brick wall. If Mintoff wanted to hold an early election within six or 12 months, what kept him from doing so? He was the undisputed leader of the Labour Party, not known for giving space to mere mortals to make him change his mind, let alone on matters of principle. And why, after six and 12 months had passed, did Mintoff remain on as prime minister for a further two years?
Fenech Adami seeks to provide the answer with further speculation, this time in my specific regard.
“A number of his Cabinet members were opposed to this, particularly his finance minister, Lino Spiteri, who had not been in Parliament since the 1960s and was therefore keen to seize the opportunity...” he writes.
Speculation aside, what are the facts?
Fenech Adami makes me out as power hungry in 1981 because I had been an MP between 1962 and 1966. I was 23 when I was elected in a by-election and 27 when I lost my seat. To Fenech Adami, four years as a junior backbencher had made me power crazy. So much so that, when I contested and was elected 15 years later, cold hunger had the better of me and I, along with three other ministers, managed to force the redoubtable Mintoff to stay on in office.
Again, what are the facts?
Mintoff formed a Cabinet. When it met for the first time, Mintoff faintly wondered whether he should govern or call another election. In the ensuing brief discussion, I asked whether the country would be thrown into confusion without a government and what if the result proved to be the same? Calling a new election was not enough.
Within a few minutes, the discussion was over. Mintoff did not test the majority opinion in the Cabinet or the parliamentary group. He never brought up the subject again in the few Cabinet meetings held thereafter, until he resigned.
When I remarked on this to deputy prime minister Ġużè Cassar, whose guile and realism remain legendary years after his death, he was coldly cynical. Mintoff was just flying a kite, he told me. Once the new Labour government started being recognised by foreign governments, he quickly dropped any notion of a new general election.
So much for Fenech Adami’s speculation, but the matter did not end there. Later, after he had resigned, did Mintoff manoeuvre, in negotiations with Guido de Marco, who kept Fenech Adami aware of what was going on, on the concept of change. He had no authority to do so. He never referred to the Cabinet, of which he no longer formed a part.
In a hostile Cabinet, I was to play no mean part to militate for a change in the Constitution to ensure that perverse results would not be possible again. I was even accused, by Cassar that I was in the hands of the Nationalists. “Mixtri!” he spat at me. “Mixtri!” Then Raymond Caruana was murdered. I told a silent Cabinet I had warned blood could run.
Cassar intervened. Sombrely he said that before he came to the Cabinet meeting a priest had drawn his attention to his responsibilities as a senior member of the Cabinet. He said he felt he had to say there had to be change. The Cabinet turned.
Even then, change was long in coming. I had to intervene in a meeting of the House of Representatives to go over to Mintoff, with the TV cameras whirring away, to prod him to speak about the changes agreed upon by the Labour parliamentary group. How should I know if I can speak, said Mintoff. How do I know what he (pointing to prime minister Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici several seats away) wants!
If Dom Mintoff wanted to hold an early election within six or 12 months, what kept him from doing so?
I looked down the row of seats that separated us and mouthed to Karmenu: “Hux jista’ jitkellem, Karm?” (He can speak, can’t he, Karm?) and immediately turned to Mintoff and told him; “There, he didn’t say no.” And Mintoff made his historical moment of truth speech.
Fenech Adami was watching while all this was going on, though he did not necessarily catch the words. Some years when I was no longer an MP, Fenech Adami and I grew closer. I told him the full story, about Mintoff not having any authority to negotiate and how it had unfolded in the Cabinet. Fenech Adami told me that confirms what we suspected all along.
Back to the 1960s. It was not part of my plans to contest the 1981 general election. I was deputy governor and head of the Central Bank at the time. The bank was riddled with Nationalist cells and leakages. A PN cell had even prepared a detailed, vicious report for the PN leadership about how my head would be chopped off and transfers would be made at the bank if a Nationalist government was elected. Nationalist MP Mario Felice, a personal friend, passed me a copy of the report.
Shortly afterwards, I was approached by Basil Wapensky, an American economist who had been head of research at the bank. He came to Malta for a holiday and had met Fenech Adami.
He told me that, among other things, they had discussed me and that Fenech Adami had told him that my Labour past would be taken into account if the PN was elected.
The message was clear. I decided that it was better to contest than to wait for Nationalist mercies.