I’m amazed not more people are sticking up for Simon Busuttil. What happened last week was described by Marlene Farrugia as an “abyss unseen since the early eighties”. My reading is the exact opposite.

There is no party-funding crisis whatsoever. My premise is that Busuttil is telling the truth, and that the PN did not solicit the DB group to fund the salaries of two party officials. Instead, it accepted the group’s donations and used them as it deemed fit.

The difference is anything but trivial. To actively solicit is to choose a preferred bidder, so to say. It implies a special and enduring relationship of trust in which a party chooses a patron over others. On the other hand, to accept a donation is simply to say that all donors are equally welcome, and therefore equally worthy.

It is for this reason that I believe that the PN never solicited any funds from the DB group. Why would a party choose a favourite and then proceed to maul it? The logic simply does not add up, and I’d have trouble believing Silvio Debono if he were the patron saint of truth.

That still leaves the PN with a hefty donation from a developer. This, presumably, is Farrugia’s abyss. Only I fail to see the point, because it is well known and broadly accepted that parties will get funding from whoever. I see nothing wrong there. What I do have a problem with is the influence that deep pockets can buy.

Which brings me to the case at hand. What Debono did was both completely unprecedented and astonishingly bold. The usual tacit understanding is that a party that fails to live up to the (twisted, at times) expectations of its donors will see its funding dry up and its fortunes at the polls dashed. No matter, because the donors will keep up their false smiles and carry on as if nothing happened.

Not so Debono. Presumably upset that his stacks of cash had got him nowhere, he broke the mould, let the devil have the false smiles, and lashed out at the PN, in public. I may be wrong, but I think this was a first. It showed two things.

First, that Debono is a toughie who will not be crossed. Second, and much more seriously, that big-money interests generally and developers in particular have become so powerful and brazen, that they can afford to take on parties, in full public view. They are now strong enough to openly challenge politics – and, by inference, the State. If that isn’t worrying, I don’t know what is.

There’s no question that Busuttil knew that Debono was a major donor to the PN. That knowledge did not stop him from doing the right thing

One solution would be State funding for parties, which presumably would make donations redundant. Only there are two big problems with that. First, there’s no saying that State money would replace donations. More likely, the parties would simply use it to top up their finances.

Second, the source of State money is taxes. Now I’m aware that some of my tax money is used by government to fund things I don’t particularly like. But then this is a democracy and government is elected by the majority to represent everyone, including me.

Political parties are nothing of the sort. I would not wish to pay tax to fund, say, Norman Lowell’s Imperium Europa party. It does not represent me, and I should rather drink dishwater than give it money to buy ‘Blacks out’ balloons.

The second solution is for parties to accept private donations but carry on with their business regardless. The degree to which they succeed becomes a measure of their integrity.

Carry on with his business regardless is exactly what Busuttil did. I say Busuttil, rather than the PN, because my gut feeling is that he was left fairly isolated on this one, and by those closest to him at that. In fact, this may have been a third reason why Debono chose to lash out at what he saw as a divided and weak party.

The only thing that was weak about Busuttil was his criticism of the environmental costs of the DB deal. The Hard Rock hotel will bring as much horror and mayhem to St George’s Bay as the American University will to Żonqor, ODZ or no ODZ.

As for the rest, Busuttil showed no weakness at all in his insistence that the DB deal was ‘dubious’. He said throughout that the land had been undervalued, and that the transfer should have been made through Parliament. A few hours before Debono asked to have his money back, Busuttil had said he would refer the matter to the Auditor General.

This, then, is the stuff that carrying on regardless is made of. There’s no question that Busuttil knew that Debono was a major donor to the PN. That knowledge did not stop him from doing the right thing.

I’m saying that, far from a general meltdown, what happened last week was both nasty business and a glimmer of hope. The latter was provided by Busuttil and the people who supported him. They showed that private donations do not necessarily hamstring politics, and that there is room for integrity.

The sad thing is that the nasty business proved more popular than one might expect. It involved Silvio Debono, the people in the PN who are warmed by his embrace, and all those who used the matter to their political advantage. Left to their devices, this lot will see to it that big-money interests will prevail over the State, and that Malta will become one big Disneyland in the process.

Maybe Farrugia was right after all, except it is this bunch who are the abyss.

mafalzon@hotmail.com

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.