Dry-eyed history is a better judge of people than immediate assessments. Like others before him, Lawrence Gonzi will have to wait a while to be placed in the right historical docket. Meanwhile, it will be the positives that ring forth.
There are positives in his career. In over nine years as Prime Minister he acquired good standing, both in Malta and abroad, at a time when membership of the European Union internationalised Malta’s relationships.
The whole political platform was raised to a higher, more technical level. The Prime Minister is at the head of that platform. The Prime Minister throughout Malta’s EU membership so far was Gonzi.
He will always be aligned with that. He took to European exchanges with an ease that belied the size of the country he was representing. In that regard, he was a success story.
He was also a success story domestically insofar as economic transformation was taking place. It was not such a success story as it is made out to be.
Services became the dynamic motor of the economy. But parts of the economy were allowed to break away into almost nothing.
It is now also becoming clear that the man’s style of economic management was not consonant with the positive reputation he was gaining.
The stories that have come out and are still coming out about the messy procurement of Malta’s main import, the way Enemalta and petroleum linkages were run into the ground, display a style which did not husband what needed to be husbanded.
Corruption was rife. That is not to say the man himself was in any way corrupt. He was as straight as a die. But the things that went on under his watch, which are an integral part of his socio-economic legacy, are shocking.
When it came to pure politics, Gonzi will not appear as a success story. He won his only electoral victory by half a whisker, having fought it on a totem pole symbol of aggrandisement, GonziPN.
The only lesson he seemed to learn from the fragility of his victory, amounting to some 800 votes, half the difference between the two main parties, was that he would show them.
Like all his predecessors, he [Lawrence Gonzi] served his country to the best of his ability
So he proceeded to run his administration as if he had won a famous victory. He made one surprising grand gesture – offering the presidency directly to a leading Labourite, a move that was not consultative or a reaching out for admission that he owed Labour something.
It was a move that, moreover, he was to taint on the eve of this year’s general election when he said the jury was still out over his decision regarding President George Abela.
That aside, Gonzi chose to staff and stuff the administration with Nationalists and fellow travellers. It is almost comical to hear the current criticism of Labour’s appointees in the context of the way Gonzi went about doing his job.
But his decision to administer as if he had a huge majority came to ruin. Fissures opened up in his party the likes of which had never been seen before.
Three members rebelled openly, such that he lost his parliamentary majority and had to suffer the indignity of a final year in office without being able to call a critical vote. When that could be postponed no more, the government was duly defeated.
Gonzi went into his last campaign a drained man, with three MPs openly against him and several more severely critical of him. He came out of the election much worse than he went into it.
Joseph Muscat, a young whippersnapper, whom Gonzi and his party had derided as being a mere child, no more than a former journalist, made mincemeat out of Gonzi and the Nationalist Party.
Gonzi was left with nowhere to go but out, knowing that the size of his defeat would dominate historical assessments of his time in politics.
It is not the end of the world. He had introduced a twinning of man and wife in politics, with his wife Kate a stalwart at his side. The strength of their bond will take them through life after politics. That, after all, is what counts for most. Not power, political success or vanity, but one’s true trusts.
I’ve had a problem with Gonzi ever since he became deputy leader, then leader of the PN. I was an MP during the time he was an excellent Speaker of the House of Representatives. I had got used to his impartiality.
When he went back into partisan politics he had to become partisan, no doubt. But to my mind he lost too much of the credibility he had gained as a Speaker in his jousts with his Labour opponents.
Beyond politics, I respect Gonzi particularly for his dedication to the disabled. They have always had a champion in him.I would be surprised if they/we did not continue to count on him in that regard.
Like all his predecessors, he served his country to the best of his ability. Like others, he had his failures. But his good points will remain worthy of notice.