A week is a dismal time in politics, especially if you happen to be the Nationalist Party and fighting both Salvu Mallia and the European Commission.
There are stacks of reasons why Mallia is to the PN what seppuku is to a Japanese warrior. Some have to do with his qualities and character, the rest with the unintended consequences of what he says and does.
Mallia is not brave. He is reckless, because he has almost nothing to lose. Most of the time he sounds like the dysfunctional anti-hero types that populate certain Maltese novels. Like them, he spends his time talking nonsense to his dog and expecting people to listen.
Take last Sunday’s interview, in which he told this newspaper so many foolish things that I hardly know where to begin. Mallia’s main gripe is that he was “swindled” into voting Labour. That makes him a rather gullible man, because the signs were obvious to anyone who bothered to look.
Besides, and given his self-confessed inclination to take any bait that drifts his way, there’s no saying he’s not being swindled again. The judgements of the gullible are just that, and Mallia’s constant reminders that he was taken for a ride do not inspire much confidence in his present beliefs, or the party they uphold.
At one point, he said that it was the PN that had pushed him to vote Labour – they did some “really stupid things” and “went overboard” towards the end of their tenure.
Never mind, because the decision to vote Labour had been made ‘in the last five minutes’, at a polling booth in Birkirkara. It turned out Edward Scicluna was there, which led Mallia to reason, “If this guy thinks these guys are good, there must be something to it”. So much for really stupid things and going overboard, then.
The bit on his “ultra-liberal” values (whatever that means) is a gem in its own right. First, Mallia thinks that things like divorce, gay marriage and euthanasia should not be regulated by government. He seems unaware of the fact that marriage is a contract before a State, and divorce a new one with major revisions. It is nonsensical to say that marriage should not in any way be regulated by the State.
Mallia is doing the PN untold damage by describing it as conservative
Second, and more consequentially, Mallia is doing the PN untold damage by describing it as conservative. He actually said that the thing he hates most about the party is its conservatism. Thing is, Simon Busuttil needs to be made to look conservative like he needs a broken toe.
It’s inaccurate, too, because Busuttil is anything but a musty conservative. To say that to be against euthanasia or abortion is to be a conservative, is simply to regurgitate an orthodoxy. It is also one that the Prime Minister, who Mallia professes to hate so much, has cashed in on.
And so, last Monday morning, and just when he needed to be talking about other things, Busuttil was forced into making solemn statements about his opposition, for the rest of time, to euthanasia and abortion. Presumably that made Mallia hate him a bit more, and Muscat a bit less. The dog’s mind boggles.
As if that weren’t suicidal enough, Mallia went on to talk about the conditions he had set out to Busuttil. Now I might understand why a Nobel Laureate might make demands and expect them to be met, but Mallia? Intended or not, the implication is that the PN is desperate to bring people on board.
The thought of Mallia plonked in Busuttil’s office ticking off conditions, and rubbish ones at that, also makes the latter look weak. Which happens to be the second of two things that Busuttil needs the least. It’s a shadow that’s haunted him from the first day of his leadership.
Unfairly so, too, because Busuttil is neither a conservative nor weak. Leading a party that happens to be in a tricky position doesn’t make you weak. Nodding to Mallia’s whims and conditions does, on the other hand.
Now I doubt any of this will bother Mallia at all. In part, that’s because he lacks the acumen. The rest is down to his obsession with himself and his infantile ideas. He obviously gets a kick out of seeing his face all over the place, and heaven knows there’s no cure for that one. Busuttil needn’t even have bothered to try to see through the red scarves, because political disaster is embroidered all over them.
As if that weren’t dismal enough, last Wednesday saw the Leader of the Opposition telling European commissioners, in Parliament no less, that many Maltese people felt let down. The EU, he said, had failed to say anything about corruption in general and the Panama Papers in particular.
Much as I think he was right, and much as I think I know why the European Commission prefers to look away from Panama, Busuttil’s missive was badly-timed and counterproductive.
Last week provided the perfect occasion for Busuttil to remind us how hard, and in the face of which opposition, he and his party had worked to make Malta a member of the EU in the first place. Instead, and just at the time when the fruits of that labour were ripe, he chose to spar with the Commission. Besides, the PN has spent years parading the EU as some kind of incorruptible pantheon. To put dents in that now is a tall order.
Jean-Claude Juncker or Salvu Mallia. Now that’s a hard choice.
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