Labour will not follow the precedent set by the Nationalist government of choosing a cross-party President for Malta. What would the constitutional significance of such a decision have on our institutions?

Firstly, one needs to explain that George Abela was not the first president having a parliamentary majority different in ideology.

Paul Xuereb was a Labour MP before serving for two years as acting president.

In fact, he presided over the crucial change in administration of 1987 when Eddie Fenech Adami first became prime minister.

Ugo Mifsud Bonnici was also a cross-party president in effect. He was appointed by the Nationalist majority but had a change of government at the 1996 election.

He then faced the very delicate parliamentary crisis caused by Dom Mintoff withdrawing his support for Alfred Sant’s government.

This led directly to the early dissolution of Parliament after fewer than two years of Labour government and, more dramatically, to a change in government.

Therefore, neither Xuereb nor Mifsud Bonnici were nominated to the highest office of the State by a party different from theirs.

This makes Abela the only cross-party president.

In none of the situations of cross-party presidencies was there any complaint of partisanship in the vital constitutional interaction between the prime minister and the presidency.

If Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca were to be appointed president, the count would stand at four-four in presidencies

This is as it should be, because the functions and powers of the president are drafted constitutionally so that the two do not become rivals of each other.

So as long as the prime minister enjoys the majority of the MPs of the House of Representatives, then the president has no reason to contrast the ‘advice’ given by the prime minister.

Even if he felt so inclined, the president may easily be removed by a simple majority of the House that still in the control of the prime minister.

On the contrary, the president acquires important constitutional powers which s/he exercises on his/her own judgement if the prime minister no longer has the confidence of the House, as happened in the case of Sant in 1998 and Lawrence Gonzi in 2013.

In these cases, the president may dismiss the prime minister or even may, on his own authority, dissolve Parliament and order fresh elections.

Therefore, the appointment of a cross-party president serves only as a declaration by the ruling party that not all the offices of the State are to be held by people of the same ideology and party.

To my mind, the appointment of Abela as the sole, true cross-party president was a necessary constitutional token gesture of pluralism.

Up to five years ago, that is before Abela’s nomination, the count in the choices of president lay at four from the Nationalist camp and only two directly from the Labour one.

Anton Buttigieg and Agatha Barbara were both sitting Labour ministers when appointed by Labour majorities, whereas Ċensu Tabone, Mifsud Bonnici, Guido de Marco and last, but certainly not least, Fenech Adami were a consecutive string of ministers, not to mention of prime minister, appointed by the Nationalist camp.

The need was manifestly felt that the time for a president from the Labour camp had come.

Barbara was nominated in 1982, which means that 27 years had to pass before another president from the Labour camp took over.

Before that, it had taken 13 years before even one president was nominated from the Nationalist camp: Tabone in 1989.

These considerations do not apply to Malta’s first two heads of State. Queen Elizabeth II, as queen of Malta from Independence till December 1974, when Malta became a Republic, and her successor, Sir Anthony Mamo, the first president of Malta, was a former chief justice and governor general of Malta.

Clearly, both of these figures were not involved in partisan politics before their appointment.

With the appointment of Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca, if indeed she is the one, the count would stand at four-four in presidencies.

If all these facts are taken into account and in order to avoid a controversial start to yet another presidency, logic, common sense and, above all, constitutional propriety commands that consensus surrounds the new appointee and that, as from the president succeeding Coleiro Preca, Parliament appoints presidents from alternate political camps every five years.