It strikes me, as a Member of the European Parliament, that there is something inherently un-European in what Labour leader Joseph Muscat is doing right now. He wants to precipitate an early general election at a time when we are facing the gravest economic climate for Europe in the last century.
There is no question that the economic climate is not conducive to an early election- Simon Busuttil
There is no question that the economic climate is not conducive to an early election. Elections are known to slow down economic activity. Pushing the country to an early – and still avoidable – election makes that shock even greater. And all the more unnecessary.
Not even Greece – with all its turmoil – went for an immediate election. Nor Italy. And not even Slovakia, which scheduled its election in March after its government was defeated in a vote of no-confidence last October – yes, a full six months after its government collapsed in Parliament.
But not Joseph Muscat.
His thirst for power is such that he could not resist seeking a free ride over Franco Debono. Buoyed by favourable opinion polls which predict a Labour victory, he went for the kill. In a rush.
On Friday, his deputy, Anġlu Farrugia, presented a motion of no confidence in the government. And he did not stop there. His rush was such that he also presented a second motion intended to limit the time of debate of the no-confidence motion to just one hour, 15 minutes for the government MPs to speak on this most important motion. That’s right. One hour, 15 minutesto determine whether a government should be thrown out of office.
An opposition is there to oppose and it would be naïve to expect it to refrain from tripping the government at every opportunity. I would not expect it to do otherwise, and in a democracy that is how it works. But even among the fiercest of democratic adversaries there are basic rules of decency and correctness.
Yet, Muscat threw decency and correctness out of the window. Instead, he is trying to force the government out of office by pushing relentlessly for the vote on his no-confidence motion to be held as early as possible.
This would deny Members of Parliament – from both sides – the opportunity to stand in the House to state their views in what could possibly be the last time they do so before an election. Surely, all MPs on both sides would want to stand up and have their say. I would.
And crucially, this would deny the PN the possibility of discussing the matter internally in its General Council. Muscat also wants to deny the Prime Minister the opportunity to defend his record and his government in a reasonable time.
Let us not forget that, over the past four years the Prime Minister was busy running the country, not preparing his electoral campaign. So he has to prepare himself and his party. We are talking about who is to govern Malta in the difficult years ahead, not who will be the next guest on Min Imissu?! So why all this unreasonable haste from the party that calls itself moderate?
Now compare this to whathappened in 1998 when Labour faced a similar crisis. The then PN Opposition resisted any temptation to trip up the government for a full eight months, until it collapsed on its own. It refrained from tabling any motion of no-confidence.
And crucially, it allowed the Labour Party to go through all the motions within its internal party structures, until its decided on its own accord to go to an election.
Every political party should be afforded time to go through its internal structures to deal with a crisis of this nature. It is not unreasonable to allow it time to do so.
In 1998, the election was held almost three months after Alfred Sant lost his confidence vote in Parliament and eight months after his government started to totter. That is a far cry from what Muscat wants to do now. He wants to precipitate an election after seven days. Is this the way to choose a government?
The Labour Party decries that the crisis was not brought about by itself but by the public declarations of a government MP. That is only true up to a point. The declarations of that MP may have caused uncertainty. But so far, they did not cause the government to collapse. It is the Labour Party that wants to do that.
The government retains a majority in Parliament until it loses it. To date, it has not lost its majority. Debono has still not voted against the government. He may well have walked all the way to the brink. But he can still go back. And judging by the Labour leader’s un-European, opportunistic behaviour, he has every reason to do so.
Dr Busuttil is a Nationalist Member of the European Parliament.