Vermin Supreme is one of the joke candidates who pop up periodically in American political campaigns. His 2011 electoral promise to give a pony to every American citizen is one of the relatively saner proposals of his campaign platform (another of which is zombie-preparedness).

Another candidate for office who cannot be accused of not thinking out of the box is Jello Biafra of the punk rock band The Dead Kennedys. Biafra once stood for election as mayor of San Francisco – coming fourth out of 10 candidates, winning 3.5 per cent of the vote, with a platform including a proposal to force all businessmen to wear clown suits to the office.

While that would have contributed somewhat to the amusement quotient in offices across the country, perhaps voters would have preferred a ‘show me the money’ pledge like that of Silvio Berlusconi. He promised that he would refund millions of euros that Italians had paid in tax payments during 2012. This would have cost the Italian treasury an estimated €4 billion, but Berlusconi promised to bankroll it from his personal fortune.

Closer to home, Tal-Ajkla candidate Nazzareno Bonnici pledg­ed to build a power station that worked on sea water, even if it required a miracle to get it going.

And continuing in this vein of impractical suggestions, the Nationalist Party promises that it will set up a Minister for Complaints if it is elected. The whole concept hasn’t been fleshed out yet, the announcement delivered during the Independence Day celebrations was just a teaser, so to speak. We are told that everything will be revealed later this year.

But since there is nothing very new under the sun, I expect it will be something like that suggested by a British parliamentary committee – basically a new minister for complaints to champion those with grievances and overhaul the way that the public sector deals with them. For a few fleeting seconds the idea may sound fine – a Complaints Tsar who will right the wrongs that a bureaucratic, unfeeling public sector has inflicted upon the poor downtrodden citizen. This then will be the new frontier of customer care which the PN minister will brave.

There is a risk that the so-called Complaints Ministry will become the Clientelism Ministry

Except that there is the risk that the so-called Complaints Ministry will become the Clientelism Ministry. At the moment there are various official channels and ways in which complaints may be voiced and injustices addressed.

The courts are the public institutions entrusted with ensuring that people’s rights are safe­guard­ed. The Ombudsman inves­tigates cases of maladministration by the public service. There’s a Commissioner for Environment and Planning and a University Ombudsman. There’s an Occupational Health and Safety Authority for all it’s worth – intended to ensure safe work practices at the work place. And even though they’re not in a good place right now, there is the police force to safeguard law and order and the wardens to (notionally) see that traffic and littering rules are enforced.

What can the Complaints Minister do that these institutions don’t? Will he be a sort of Ministerial Superman flying in to the rescue and ensuring that his own particular brand of justice is done? Will he overturn decisions that have been taken by these institutions if a complainant turns up at his office? Does a decision of the Complaints Minister trump a court decision? Would there be any way to complain about a decision of the Complaints Minister?

If the Complaints Minister is intended to do any of the above, it would be an outright vote of no confidence in all our public institutions. It would also mean that the ministerial say-so substitutes the decisions reached by institutions in a regulated, transparent and reviewable manner. Once again, currying favour with the minister would be more important than ensuring that decisions are taken by impartial institutions. If this isn’t a blueprint for clientelism, I don’t know what is.

We’ve been here before, you know – this fuss political parties make about feeling citizens’ pain (those ‘weġgħat’) and about keeping their fingers on the pulse of the nation and their ears on the ground. It’s just fifty shades of ‘Gvern/Partit li Jisma’. It always boils down to more Taħt it-Tinda discussions and fancy websites inviting comments, suggestions and criticism which the parties proceed to ignore. Still better than a Complaints/Clientelism Minister.

cl.bon@nextgen.net.mt

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