Martin Scicluna’s article ‘Echo Chamber Politics’ (March 15) walked a tightrope, one that by castigating both the Labour and the Nationalist parties would seem a fair and balanced comment. Indeed, what he says about the deplorable local political scene is effectively what some 30 per cent of the electorate thinks: switchers, those who vote for the small parties and some of those who stay away from the polling booths.
Just “thinks”, because when push comes to shove, two-thirds of them hold their noses, as Indro Montanelli once put it, and vote either red or blue.
They will swallow the bait offered by the big parties (and by most opinion writers and bloggers) that unless they do so, they are wasting their vote.
Scicluna says: “My task is to provide informed and constructive criticism and commentary, and to cajole and if necessary to hassle those who have the power to make decisions affecting our lives.” His article seems to me a humble admission of not having achieved much to date. Nor is he delighted with the success he has achieved in his objective, “to influence people’s views and opinions as responsibly and constructively as possible”. One has to hand it to him that the task is indeed hard.
Or is it that we have reached a point where fair comment is just not enough? Scicluna finds the actions of both parties intolerable, and it is logical that he should be considering different political scenarios. Yet he offers no alternative. The only tool that citizens have to effect political change is their vote.
Scicluna is closely linked to a source of fresh thinking on this deplorable situation: The Today Public Policy Institute (TPPI), of which he is the best-known board member. This institute can and should play a much more active and incisive role in the political situation than it has done so far.
Its statute speaks of improving “policies or creating viable alternatives” and facilitating “public debate among experts… in pursuit of its goal to advise on any aspect of future planning and strategy affecting Malta”, and declares its mission in helping “in the development of sound public policies”. Indeed their five statutory “areas of policy” go to the heart of what makes for good governance.
The track records of the two major parties – or the two ‘evils’, as they often define each other – make it clear that a space for a third political force truly exists
The TTPI can offer insights as to why the stranglehold of the two parties seems unbreakable and on what is necessary to break it. Surely this would be a healthy antidote to the resigned, ‘choose the lesser of two evils’ solution that so often gets trotted out and which is nothing but a smokescreen for vested interests.
The institute’s brief, and the credentials of its members, make it well placed to initiate an impartial discussion on coalition governments as a viable alternative to the sad state of affairs. Such governments are sheer anathema to the PL and PN. For 50 years, both have been hammering into electors the very opposite: coalitions make for unstable governments.
Neither party will ever tell you that it is their ‘stable’ governments that have landed us in this unholy mess.
Nor will they tell you that coalitions are the order of the day in the European Union. Our two big parties’ aversion to a third party and coalition governments is a limited vision of a viable democracy.
I imagine that at this point, many will be remarking that one should not even begin to talk of coalition governments before having a decent reform of the electoral system in place.
I tend to believe that this stance blocks the way forward. All attempts in the past 25 years to reform the electoral system have failed. Nor have the major parties in the last years hinted that they have any intention to go down that road.
If the parties will not take the first step, then the people could try to take it for them. This is not to say that one can entertain illusions about viable alternatives.
If, say, in the next election, all persons of goodwill – obviously including PL and PN voters – do not limit themselves to voting only for their party but carry on giving less preference to other parties’ candidates whom they believe can make a contribution to the country, then the people will be able to send a strong message.
The track records of the two major parties – or the two ‘evils’ as they often define each other – make it clear that a space for a third political force truly exists. Its inhabitants are the dissatisfied persons who agree with what Scicluna said in his article.
I believe the TPPI has the potential to provide more than just analysis: it can also propose solutions which open new roads to help Malta crawl out of this quagmire. Plugging our nose is not a solution; it is abject resignation.
Joseph Agius is a retired education officer and until recently, an active environmentalist.