Take your pick. You can either say the plot thickens. Or that the basic political situation has never been clearer – the Prime Minister is not, to put it mildly, guaranteed his one-seat majority in Parliament.
The Prime Minister is not, to put it mildly, guaranteed his one seat majority in Parliament- Lino Spiteri
If he reconvened the House he would find that out soon enough. Will he? He should. If not for his own dignity, then for the sake of the country.
Malta has never passed through such a chaotic situation. There were parliamentary ruptures in the past. Post-war, at least three MPs crossed the floor – Johnny Cole (to Labour), Coronato Attard (to the Nationalists) and Alfred Baldacchino (also to Labour).
Another one (Paul Carachi, Labour) requested a seat in the middle of the House, but did not press his point.
Nevertheless there have never been as many as three government MPs who, for one reason or another, failed to support their side. That is the situation today.
Jesmond Mugliet, who was simply texted by Lawrence Gonzi to tell him he would not reappoint him as a minister, is possibly the mildest of them all. Yet he withheld his vote and abstained in an opposition no confidence motion in Richard Cachia Caruana that the government was desperate to defeat.
Franco Debono, a parliamentary assistant, blew hot and cold and then voted against his government, to help the opposition politically decapitate the gentlest of ministers.
For his pains he too was told he would not be allowed to contest again on a PN ticket. Chagrined, he first said he would ask his party to change its decision, then that he would not support the government if Austin Gatt remained a Cabinet member.
But then again, he did toe the party line to support Cachia Caruana in the PN executive though he had ferociously attacked him in the recent past, placing him at the centre of an alleged oligarchy. So who knows what he’ll do. The Prime Minister certainly does not.
Then there is Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando. He turned out to be the biggest elephant in the room. Throwing a bolt from the blue, as the Archbishop put it, he humiliated Gonzi over the divorce issue.
He then humiliated Gonzi and his party, plus Cachia Caruana, by voting with the opposition to ensure that the latter’s useful service as Malta’s permanent representative to the EU was terminated.
He was, in turn, humiliated when he sought to have Cachia Caruana expelled from the PN. No one supported him in a show of hands – albeit had there been a secret vote one or two individuals might have been tempted to join him, RCC not being the most popular of men, even in his party.
Pullicino Orlando, who resigned from the PN on Thursday, is more than ever a loose cannon. If a fresh vote of no confidence in the government is called he might give the fatal kick where it hurts most against the remnants of GonziPN.
Ironically it transpires that the party has been trying to get rid of him since the result of the 2008 general election, which the PN won by a hair’s breadth, possibly through the weepy antics of the same Pullicino Orlando which gathered him sympathy votes, instead of deserved condemnation for the Mistra affair.
Right now poisoned arrows are being fired at him from all quarters of the Nationalist contingent, including the PN media. That is unlikely to massage him back into guaranteeing the Prime Minister his vote.
That is not the end of the story. John Dalli, who had been forced to resign his ministerial post by Gonzi over what he claims were the trumped-up charges which the Prime Minister had not yet investigated, is still fuming.
He attributes a frame-up to colleagues in the PN and is now, he said a few days ago, still targeted by PN insiders, along with his family.
He doesn’t vote in the House. Yet his voice carries more weight than most. For good measure there is also former Nationalist minister Michael Falzon who bluntly casts doubt about Gonzi’s style of leadership.
Of all this, what counts is the support in the House of Representatives. Defiantly, the Prime Minister still says he will soldier on to the end. Can he?
With Pullicino Orlando no longer a guaranteed Yes on key votes, one doubts he can manage that. He may not survive a call by the opposition to the Speaker to cut short the lengthy summer holidays and reconvene Parliament for a probable vote of no confidence.
More than could he, should he hang on? From a partisan standpoint, perhaps yes. With every day that passes more efforts will be made to massage disgruntled Nationalist voters and to blacken Labour leader Joseph Muscat and his team.
That is the circus part of politics. What about, though, the much vaunted national interest and the common good? More and more people are saying the current comedy of errors cannot go on. That it is not simply ridiculing politics – it is harming the country. Uncertainty is the worst enemy of decision takers, that essential breed of shakers and movers.
There is a growing thread of concern that says whoever wins the general election, call it for heaven and Malta’s sake.
The farce, the vituperation, the uncertainty cannot go on.