The Labour Party has never had it so good. Joseph Muscat could, if he were so inclined, sell passports to dodgy millionaires, or hand over a vast salary to the wife of one of his colleagues, or fire a Health Minister for no apparent reason, and no one would bat an eyelid. And if someone did, no one would notice. It’s called a government without an Opposition to oppose it.
Take Simon Busuttil. Since I haven’t carried out a ratings survey based on a representative sample, what follows may be completely wrong. But I know many people who aren’t too optimistic about his chances of rallying the troops. They think he is somehow too starched and distant for the job. It’s not long since I too shared that opinion.
Only I’ve changed my mind. It turns out there’s nothing particularly the matter with Busuttil. Qualified, articulate and affable, he is head and shoulders above the average Maltese politician, truth be told. He also comes across, very probably accurately, as secular and freethinking, and unlikely to run the PN as an extension of the Catholic Church. That matters tremendously, in the climate of the times.
So much so, that I also think he was the best choice of the three front runners for the party leadership. Mario de Marco, whom I like and whose political career I admire greatly, is probably too posh for his own good. I doubt he would ever have appealed to a broad range of voters. As for Beppe Fenech Adami, he is a proven conservative. Nothing unpardonable about that, of course, except he’s in the wrong country at the wrong time.
As I see it, there’s a bit of what psychologists call ‘displacement’ going on here. The problem (a blessing, to Labourites) is not that Busuttil is not attracting people to the PN, it’s that the PN is not attracting people to Busuttil.
What those who say that Busuttil is not leadership material really mean, is that the PN is not opposition material. They would say the same if Nelson Mandela, or Frederick II, were leader.
That’s because the Opposition is at present socially, morally and politically redundant. The reason has nothing to do with the brilliance of Muscat’s government. Rather, it is down to two things.
First, to the bumbling by the Gonzi administration in its final months. Not that it was bad generally (quite the contrary), but it did get some things horribly wrong. I have in mind the divorce issue, the sickening reluctance to end the Franco Debono business the proper way and call an election, and the bullish behaviour of Austin Gatt among others. All of which rubbed people the wrong way to such an extent that the fur will take a while to revert to comfort mode.
Second, to what we might call the pendulum of history. The 1996 fluke (and it was) apart, the Labour Party was itself a pretty redundant Opposition throughout much of the 1990s and noughties. It is now the PN’s turn to experience the freeze.
It’s the kind of difficult situation in which nothing the PN says will sound right. I mean the citizenship matter wasn’t exactly straightforward, and yet the Opposition’s stand impressed no one. Gay adoptions came and stayed as if they were a local council parking by-law. Australia Hall and billboard cronyism could have happened in Patagonia for all people cared. And so on.
The last time I checked, Radio 101 was going on about a shortage of toilet paper at the Floriana primary school (I’m not making this up).
What those who say that Busuttil is not leadership material really mean, is that the PN is not opposition material
Now that’s an indictment of Evarist Bartolo’s skills.
So, then, is it a permafrost? Should the PN sell off its assets, settle its debts and call it a century? Most certainly not.
The last months of the Gonzi administration may have been a dog’s dinner. They were not, however, particularly traumatic. Nor are they unforgivable in the same way as the happenings of the mid-1980s were. Most of us got on with our lives rather well, Debono or no Gatt. I don’t imagine it should take too long for the PN to exorcise the ghosts.
Besides, the thing with a pendulum is, it swings back at some point. The Opposition may feel useless and gormless now, but it won’t do so for ever.
The Muscat administration will sooner or later come up against a swelling tide of resistance, no matter how soundly it might govern. It is the predicament of all governments to collect enemies.
Then, and only then, will the Opposition come into its own.
As is, very few of those 36,000 would vote PN if an election were held tomorrow. The rest might stay at home, or they might give Muscat a second chance. In time, however, this will change.
Where does that leave Busuttil? Will he ever be Prime Minister? The answer to the second question depends very much on circumstance and the accidents of chance. It also depends on how in touch he will appear to be with that rising tide of resistance, when it comes.
Meanwhile, he could do worse than forget how many people are flocking back to the PN (not many) and concentrate instead on strengthening, and reforming where necessary, the structures of the party. That way, when the opposition comes to the Opposition, it will find a well-organised champion ready to take up the cause.
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