The surprise appointment of Lou Bondi as a member of the Foundation for Maltese National Festivities last week hit the headlines and stirred a lot of hot air.

No words can describe the evident stark difference between Bondi’s kid glove approach last Tuesday and his pre-electoral attitude towards Labour

I cannot but suspect that it was no coincidence that the announcement of this appointment was made practically on the same day of the Prime Minister appointing John Dalli as head of the entity tasked with reforming the administration at Mater Dei Hospital. As a result, the relatively unimportant news about Bondi stole the limelight from the more serious Dalli appointment. If this was the intended consequence, then the ruse worked perfectly.

Bondi’s appointment, unimportant as it might be, gave a new bizarre meaning to the promised ‘meritocracy’. As some wit put it, those who helped Labour win the election merit recognition – hence meritocracy should be assessed from this point of view.

I have no doubt that Bondi’s aggressive anti-Labour attitude in his balanced television programmes provoked a reaction that actually pushed voters away from the PN. This means that a small part of Joseph Muscat’s wide winning margin can be attributed to Bondi’s efforts.

I can never forget his stance against Labour deputy leader Toni Abela in a particular edition of his programme in which he was interviewing both Abela and Simon Busuttil. At one point, Busuttil had to endure the discomfort of playing the role of a distant observer, staying embarrassingly silent while Bondi savaged Abela no end.

On another occasion he seriously – and indignantly – expected Abela to dish out off his cuff the technical nitty-gritty of Labour’s proposal for a gas-fuelled electricity generation plant. Bondi failed miserably to ridicule Abela, and the end result was that Bondi was so blatantly unfair he actually put people off from voting PN.

Some would therefore argue that Bondi’s unwitting contribution to Muscat’s victory certainly merits recognition. What better recognition than being appointed as one of 11 members of the Foundation for Maltese National Festivities?

The cherry on the cake, of course, was the use of Bondi’s appointment to balance the books with the other outrageous appointment – that of Jason Micallef as the new chairman of the Valletta 2018 Foundation. That decision was also criticised by many who felt Micallef was unsuitable for the post.

Last Tuesday, the guest on Bondi’s television programme was none other than the Prime Minister himself. No words can describe the evident stark difference between Bondi’s kid glove approach last Tuesday and his pre-electoral attitude towards Labour.

But beyond the spin and manipulations behind and resulting from this unexpected move on the part of the Prime Minister, Bondi’s appointment provoked a negative reaction from many who voted Labour for the first time as well as an unprecedented outburst from diehard labour supporters who openly spoke out against a decision taken by a Labour Prime Minister.

This has never happened before, albeit the fact that there were Labour supporters who privately disagreed with decisions taken by prime ministers Dom Mintoff, Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici and Alfred Sant. However, they never dared express themselves explicitly in this manner so long as their party leader was Prime Minister.

Labour MEP Joseph Cuschieri, recently promoted to a new responsibility as the head of the Labour delegation at the European Parliament, described Bondi’s appointment as “a shameful decision” and an “open challenge to Maltese and Gozitans of good will”.

Writing in his Facebook page, former minister Joe Grima even compared Muscat with Sant, saying this was no new way of doing politics but “masochism the like of which not even Alfred Sant, who lost four times, managed to display”.

Although Grima never saw eye to eye with Sant, he never openly criticised him so long as he was Prime Minister.

The list goes on. What is even more telling is that Bondi’s appointment was harshly criticised in the editorial of the GWU daily L-Orizzont last Monday, that insisted “it is difficult, if not impossible, that one accepts that someone who did his best to erode democracy, even at the cost of thousands of euros pumped from public funds... now starts eating from the hands of the new Government”. The editorial even went on to state that Bondi’s appointment was unnecessarily offensive (offiża żejda), more so as he has ended up by being awarded.

Can anyone imagine L-Orrizont in the past editorially speaking in this vein about a decision taken by a Labour PM?

The Prime Minister reacted by simply assuring all and sundry that he knew what he was doing.

Muscat had promised a revolution within his party and in the way politics is done in Malta. Wittingly or unwittingly, this revolution seems to include the new – and incredible – phenomenon of Labour supporters openly criticising their leader while occupying the post of Prime Minister. Labour supporters are no longer behaving as if their leader was some demi-god beyond reproach, and considering whatever he does as automatically acceptable.

I reckon that this is a really great development in Maltese politics. Giving Bondi a relatively minor appointment was certainly worth it.

micfal@maltanet.net