Only fools will have rejoiced at his decision to abstain. The reason is simple and Robert Arrigo summed it up when he is quoted to have said that “abstention on a crucial vote would leave the government like a car with a slow puncture”. With his vote-winning track record this backbencher on the government side must know what he is talking about.
The Prime Minister is in an impossible situation- Mario Vella
He was elected mayor of Sliema in 1994, 1997, 2000 and 2003 obtaining 367.48 per cent, 83.98 per cent, 353.58 per cent and 368.87 per cent of the quota respectively. In 2003 he was elected to Parliament for the 10th district, having obtained 1,827 votes in the first count. He was again elected in 2008 with 2,965 first count votes. Not bad, considering that in the same district Minister Dolores Cristina got 2,058 first count votes and Minister George Pullicino 2,048.
Am I wrong or is that not, respectively, 907 and 917 votes less than Mr Arrigo? No wonder that, when last Tuesday he stood to speak in the no-confidence debate in Parliament, he told the House that “thousands of voters felt hurt when they saw that people on the government’s front bench had been elected without a full quota”.
Anyway, irrespective of your ability or otherwise to bring something new and positive to the country, you don’t get the kind of electoral results this back bencher got without knowing your way around your constituency and around your party. That is why I take the guy seriously. If he says that the post-26/1 Nationalist government is a car with a slow puncture, then he can’t be very wide off the mark.
Jean-Pierre Farrugia is, I believe, someone who is able to bring something new and positive to the country. Speaking in the House in the same debate, PN backbencher Dr Farrugia said that an early election could be a blessing in disguise. He did add that, however, this was not quite the right time for an election. I have a funny feeling that he may be more convinced about the “early-election-as-blessing” than the qualifying “not-the-right-time” statement.
Anyway, I beg to differ with the “not-the-right-time” one. Because stability has not been restored with Franco Debono’s abstention and the Speaker’s casting vote last Thursday; we are not in the best possible shape to face the difficult times ahead. With the IMF expecting our real GDP growth in 2012 not to exceed one per cent – the government’s own projection is 220 per cent more optimistic than the IMF’s – we will need a safer pair of hands at the wheel than those there are now.
In the words of the IMF mission, the “primary challenge in 2012 will be the ability to navigate a highly uncertain macroeconomic environment with a deteriorating economic outlook, and ongoing banking and sovereign crisis in Europe”. To do so, to start with, we will need someone at the helm who will not tolerate the sort of government squandering and wastefulness that we have become accustomed to.
This someone, if she or he is to succeed, will need to be able to achieve this without rocking the boat of government, without making it even more unstable. That’s a tall order indeed. Does Dr Gonzi fit the bill? Former PN minister Michael Falzon seems to suggest that Dr Gonzi’s very style of leadership precludes this inasmuch as it is itself a source of instability.
It is true that PN backbencher Dr Debono “merely” abstained from voting on the no-confidence motion but he only did so after delivering a damning speech arguing that the Prime Minister was a hostage of “a few persons around him”. He was not only referring to some ministers but also to an “unelected clique”. Dr Debono has not voted in favour of the no-confidence motion but he has not retracted this and several other serious statements, and I doubt he will.
If Dr Debono is right, then Dr Gonzi cannot bring order to his house without making it even more unstable. The easiest route would be for him to do very little or, better, nothing at all. If this is the case, the squandering and the wastefulness will not cease. This politically easy path, however, will lead to serious financial and economic instability. The Prime Minister is in an impossible situation.
The consequences of doing nothing to rein in his ministers and political appointees at the top of key public sector entities will not only have serious financial consequences which will further weaken our ability to navigate through the worsening international turbulence ahead of us. It will also have social and political consequences. Socially, this path will continue to alienate parts of civil society from Dr Gonzi’s government. Politically, it will inflame elements within the Nationalist Party that are unhappy with the present state of affairs.
That is why I disagree with Dr Farrugia that this is not the time for an early election. The international turbulence will not calm down in the next year or two. So, why wait? Waiting will only make matters worse. We need elections as soon as possible, to recover stability and concentrate on coming out of the international turbulence unscathed. There will be no better time, only worse.
Dr Vella blogs at http://watersbroken.wordpress.com .