Mr Speaker, Michael Frendo, will have an easy job if he is asked to rule on a Labour Opposition adjournment motion signifying no confidence in the government. He will be guided by precedent – in 1998, when the Nationalist Opposition used the same manoeuvre to try to bring the Labour government down, Madam Speaker Myriam Spiteri Debono ruled against the Nationalists.
Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi will have a much tougher job, on various fronts. In 1998, The Times has reminded its readers, Opposition leader Eddie Fenech Adami, with the weighty help of former Speaker Lawrence Gonzi at his side, had accepted the Speaker’s ruling, sarcastically remarking that the House was being turned into a talking shop.
Speaker Frendo’s ruling this time round can only be presumed to have the same effect, but it will be greeted with grim satisfaction by Dr Gonzi and with much congratulatory thumping on their desks by some of his backbenchers. That is the way of politics, but it will not alleviate the dire situation the PM finds himself in.
Real improvement can only come about if Franco Debono, still nominally a government backbench MP, dramatically changes his mind and tune. His stance against Dr Gonzi has been growing harder. It does not have much more to go once he has branded his leader undemocratic. But the MP does push it on, making conditions the PM cannot accept, as well as inviting him, aided by the whole Cabinet, to a no-holds-barred debate.
Initially it was unclear who the MP’s main target was. It seemed to be Minister Carmelo Mifsud Bonnici, particularly when he was in charge of both Justice and Home Affairs. When the PM finally yielded and took Justice away from Dr Mifsud Bonnici and gave it to Chris Said, Dr Debono was infuriated rather than placated.
He declared total war. That was nearly four months ago. Hostilities have not eased up at all since then, whatever tactics Dr Gonzi used, ranging from grim dismissal to massaging of the recalcitrant MP, on to submitting himself for re-election in a race nobody was interested in contesting. Since then too, the House of Representatives was turned into a shadow of such a hallowed institution, with no vote being taken, given that the government did not know which way Dr Debono would jump.
Meanwhile May 14 grew nearer. By that date the government has to put to the vote a technical money Bill to implement the 2012 Budget measures. Without the passing of such a Bill the island would plumb into unprecedented financial crisis. As uncertainty grew, a government in denial kept saying there was none. Eventually the Prime Minister was forced to take the bull by the horns.
Last week he announced that the Implementation Bill would be put to the (second reading) vote on May 9. Simultaneously, he went into overdrive with internal election strategy meetings and external meetings in the reaching-out offensive he had tasked MEP Simon Busuttil to organise.
So much is clear. Or is it? It remains unclear whether the PM will call an early general election, even if the charade cannot continue. It is not harming the Nationalist Party alone. It is affecting negatively the whole country. The only reason that it goes on is that the Prime Minister, as Nationalist Party leader, wants to gain as much time as possible belatedly to reach out to the people in what Dr Debono has mischievously dubbed Operation Kitchens.
The mix of mischief and anger, ducking and weaving, is only in a sense a replay of 1998, of the way Dom Mintoff stressed Prime Minister Alfred Sant and rocked the Labour government. When push came to shove over the Cottonera project, which did not even involve a money Bill, Dr Sant turned it into a vote of confidence whose outcome was easily predictable.
When he lost the vote, love him or hate him, Dr Sant was man enough to call an election.
There are decisions you can run away from, but not escape. Dr Gonzi cannot rely on the Speaker’s rulings and casting votes without further losing credibility.
The time is up.