The more I read parliamentary reports of the opposition’s motions on Carmelo Mifsud Bonnici and Richard Cachia Caruana, the more I wonder what political mileage the Labour Party is getting from them, aside from the ethical side of the affairs.
Resignations are called for much more serious matters than actual or alleged operational shortcomings- Lino Spiteri
A political party’s priority is to penetrate as much as possible into the catchment area of the uncommitted and the disgruntled.
The Nationalist Party, betraying abysmal lack of imagination plus a readiness to attack on the personal front, is doing that for the umpteenth time by playing the fear card. It tries to rake up Labour’s past as dolled up by it for political convenience.
For instance, it focuses on former Labour Minister Karmenu Vella. His sin is that at 60-something he is a political veteran still much admired by his constituents.
They will democratically re-elect him in the coming general election. Should Labour win, Vella is a shoo-in for a senior Cabinet position.
That, says the PN leadership, faithfully echoed down the line, would be beyond pardon. So much for the right of the electorate to choose the candidates they prefer.
The line is foolish in terms of penetration. A chunk of the electorate is made up of voters still coming to grips with the current political scene, and eager to try to understand who will prepare them best for the challenging future.
In Vella they will only see a charismatic politician with honed debating skills, particularly on television, and – if they bother to probe that far – with a CV wherein experience in the private sector makes most other candidates on both sides drool with envy.
The Nationalist line against the likes of Vella, accusing them that they have been around too long, glaringly contradicts their main offensive against Labour leader Joseph Muscat, whom they accuse of being too young and therefore inexperienced. I doubt that such messy approaches will cut much mustard with uncommitted voters, or even with disgruntled Nationalists.
Labour has easy pickings. For a government that does not fight its main battles on the strength of its performance is one that betrays loss of self-confidence. Labour can add that weakness to the armoury from which an opposition can choose to fire away at a sitting government.
Instead, it spends prime time alienating the public from the government’s actual and perceived shortcomings by grimly focusing on Mifsud Bonnici and Cachia Caruana.
The focus is clearly influenced by the stance against both men taken by the outspoken and rebellious Nationalist MP Franco Debono. In that context, the opposition ignores the principle of political accountability and attacks Cachia Caruana, and seeks his dismissal, for something they charge, happened eight to nine years ago in connection with Partnership for Peace and Parliament’s sovereignty.
I doubt that many uncommitted voters know of or give a damn about the Partnership for Peace, membership of which is no longer an issue of disagreement anyway.
Those who do follow will not have been impressed by the fact that there was not much secrecy in what took place eight years ago, so much so that several local papers reported it. If hell had to be raised, it should have been then, not now.
And hell, then or now, concerns the minister and the government, not a bureaucrat, albeit a political appointment and a long-surviving eminence grise. As such he does his job, like spin doctors do for the politicians who appoint them. The final responsibility lies with the latter.
Contradiction steps in here as well. A motion of censure against Mifsud Bonnici was based, his shadow – Michael Falzon – emphasised when moving it on Wednesday, on lack of performance and errors of judgment and fact in the portfolios which he had been responsible for – Home and Justice (he has since lost the latter).
Falzon made a long speech highlighting shortcomings in the operations of the Police Force and the running of the public prison.
Remarkably, at least according to the media reports, the shadow spokesman did not bring into play the Commissioner of Police or the Director of Prisons in his offensive. All the blame was pinned on Mifsud Bonnici, presumably on the basis of the principle of ministerial accountability, so glaringly ignored in the case of the criticism levelled at Cachia Caruana.
The contradiction is evident. It was made worse by the fact that Falzon moved an amendment to his own motion, to change it from censure to one calling for Mifsud Bonnici’s resignation. Falzon emphasised throughout that there was nothing personal in the matter.
He explained that the motion was born last summer out of multiple shortcomings under the minister’s responsibility, and it was tabled in December.
True, but the resignation call is being made now. It is a call that the opposition of the day can, by such logic, make regularly against every minister throughout any legislature. Politics just isn’t played that way.
The duty of an opposition remains to oppose and – boy! – don’t the Nationalists do just that when they are in opposition. But resignations are called for much more serious matters than actual or alleged operational shortcomings.
I believe Falzon when he insists, from his standpoint, the issue is not personal. I know him well and he isn’t the type to attack personally.
Yet I doubt this can be said from the political standpoint of the opposition as such. More than personal, the amendment is opportunistic, to try to entice Debono to vote for it and further embarrass the government.
There is no guarantee he will do that. Whatever he does, this alienation will hardly gain the votes of the discerning uncommitted for the Labour Party.
And it will cause more disgruntled Nationalists to return to the fold.
Exactly the opposite of what Labour is aiming for.