It has not been a good month for politicians. The revelations of the Maltese connections with Swiss Leaks; two reports by the Auditor General damning the government for the deal with Café Premier and the hedging with Socar; and the allegations that works carried out at private premises in Gozo were paid out of public works continue to fuel public disenchantment with politics. This is quite a list for such a short period of time.

Faced by this scenario, one is tempted to agree with Michael Walzer, a prominent American political philosopher, who says that conventional wisdom has it that politicians are a good deal morally worse than the rest of us and concludes that it is not possible to govern innocently.

Not everyone shares such a negative appraisal of politics and politicians. Susan Mendus, recently invited by The Strickland Foundation to speak about politics and morality, says that pessimists like Walzer are balanced by optimists like Immanuel Kant. For Kant honesty is not simply the best policy; it is better than any policy, and this is as true for politicians as for anyone else.

Optimists, Mendus tells us, believe that politics and morality can be reconciled as the pursuit of political ends does not necessarily require the adoption of morally disreputable means. The third strand includes pluralists who argue that there will be occasions when a politician can be forced by circumstances to reject conventional moral values in favour, not of immorality, but of a different set of values which Mendus describes as the values of politics itself.

In her book, Politics and Morality, she argues that we have reason to be glad that politicians are not always morally good. The examples she quotes to buttress her claim are acts which benefit the country and its common good.

The wrongdoing alleged in the first paragraph of this piece finds no justification in Mendus’s political philosophy.

Strong institutions and a free press are the two most important factors in the fight against immoral politics

In her lecture in Malta, Mendus said that strong institutions and a free press are the two most important factors in the fight against immoral politics. It is therefore no coincidence that behind the unsavoury revelations that in the past couple of weeks have rocked the political establishment yet again, one finds an institution – the National Audit Office – and the media.

Two reports by the Audit Office have strongly criticised the government because of the shady deal about Café Premier (originally flagged by Malta Today) and the hedges of fuel from Socar, a company owned by the government of Azerbaijan, which has a policy of zero-tolerance for transparency and honest dealings.

There is no need to repeat in this column all the ‘strange’ coincidences and unexplained twists and turns that characterise both cases. The mess surrounding them raises a list of awkward questions that have not been satisfactorily answered by the government. The unearthing of new information makes these deals messier by the day.

The other two cases were uncovered by the press. These two cases are, however, different one from the other. One case has been proven; the other is still under investigation.

The names of the Maltese politicians who formed part of the Swiss Leaks list have been revealed by The Malta Independent on Sunday, but have been confirmed by the politicians themselves. No one is contesting the fact that Michael Falzon and Ninu Zammit had deposited money in a Swiss bank, avoided the payment of taxes, presented false declarations in Parliament and have not been truthful with their prime minister, colleagues and voters.

The allegations that an anonymous person, described by Malta Today as a whistleblower, made about former minister Giovanna Debono and her husband are very serious, but at the point of writing they are just allegations. One hopes the police expedite their investigations so that more light can be shed on the case and, if things turn out to be as alleged (Debono strongly denies any wrongdoing), the grave legal and political responsibilities that will arise would be immediately assumed.

The employment of Debono’s husband in her ministry (though not by Debono herself) is already messy enough. In what appears to be a Gozitan trend, the current Minister for Gozo, whose parliamentary declaration of assets beggars belief, also has his wife working in his ministry!

All the above cases raise issues of both legal and political responsibilities. The former are underpinned by legislation while the latter are guided by ethical behaviour. Not everything that is legally sanctioned is necessarily ethically or politically correct. It is about time that politicians cease to unconvincingly try to cover themselves by the proverbial fig leaf stating that everything is OK because everything was legally correct. That is not enough.

Falzon was mature enough to realise this elementary principle. Unlike Zammit, he should be praised for issuing an unconditional apology for his actions and although he had regularised his position with the tax authorities he was man enough to issue an unconditional apology for his actions.

His apology shows how miserably mistaken the former mayor of Siġġiewi was after declaring he does not know the difference between right and wrong as he only knows the difference between the legal and the illegal.

Such an untenable distinction would drag public life and political morality into the gutter. This is the kind of mentality that fully justifies the pessimism expressed by Walzer about politicians.

People who express such cynical opinions are totally inept to hold public office as their standards are abysmally low.

Walzer’s position finds comfort in another cynical attitude which is much in evidence. The government gives the impression that it has a list of what it considers to be scandalous political behaviour.

Instead of denouncing, investigating and punishing the perpetrators, it keeps such scandals up its sleeves, giving them the light of day only when it becomes politically convenient to score political points or to divert people’s attention.

It seems unfortunate that we have reached an age in our political development when cynicism instead of morality is considered to be the soul of politics.

joseph.borg@um.edu.mt