The only reason why a particular Nationalist MP has gone down in local political history as Il-Lapsus is a ruling given in 1997 by the Speaker of the House, Myriam Spiteri Debono, when she had decided, in an uncontested manner, that an original vote in the House should always stand independent of one's intent.
This was or, rather, should have been the precedent and guiding light applied in last week's parliamentary saga when, for some unexplainable reason, the Nationalist parliamentary secretary who experienced a similar lapsus was even asked by the Clerk of the House there and then to "repeat" his vote. That much I can vouch for personally under oath.
It was a bad day for democracy when undue pressure was, in our opinion, brought to bear on Mr Speaker before he could even read out the vote.
As our parliamentary group whip correctly pointed out, in terms of standing orders, the Chair simply had to declare the vote and no one could interpret such a vote.
On the other hand, I still find it hard to comprehend how and why my colleague Justyn Caruana was singled out in an almost sexist manner with the highest degree of certainty by none other than the Leader of the House as having voted against the Labour Party's own motion in the House. While, the day after, the Prime Minister tried to reassure us that some five Nationalist MPs bore testimony to this "twist of events", the moment it began to emerge that this could have been nothing short of a "frame up", the Nationalist media changed tack and what started off as a fact suddenly found itself being referred to as a dubious vote. This contrasts even more sharply with the Nationalist Party's own official statement on the same night of the vote when it said that it did not doubt that Dr Caruana had made "a genuine mistake". The subliminal effect of such a statement shows the PN's perseverance in trying to instill an element of doubt about Dr Caruana's actions.
They even had the cheek to allege that Joseph Muscat himself had not given her the opportunity to immediately clarify her position.
The fact that an individual vote count requested by the opposition resulted in virtually all of the Parliament's microphones being left switched off, reflected even worse on an Office that should pride itself on its would-be independence. Was this another case of "incompetence" as in the BWSC saga?
When we walked out of the House, it was so patently obvious that the government's intention was simply that of triggering a second vote to reverse the outcome, with the "inconclusive" recording facilitating the process.
Citing the European Parliament procedures is as irrelevant as the Prime Minister's repeated claim that Mario Galea's vote was just a mistake. No wonder Dr Muscat, when addressing a press conference at the PL headquarters last Friday reflected our collective views that the Chair gave the impression of being led by remote control by the Prime Minister, thus creating a surreal situation.
I cannot accept the insistence of PN stalwarts on Xarabank that Dr Caruana should have asked to correct herself when she argued all along with deepest conviction that she had voted for the PL motion correctly.
If, hypothetically, Dr Caruana had voted against the PL motion earlier on, why then did the government MPs keep quiet rather than rubbing their hands with glee? This particularly since she voted well ahead of Mr Galea because of the alphabetical order in which names are called.
The general feeling was that in the same way certain people seemed intent on bending the rules to breaking point to keep the BWSC contract on at all costs, parliamentary precedents were conveniently ignored by those who should have known better to ensure the PL motion got defeated in the House.
The PL has shown that it will not be taken for any rides and that it can do more than complain. It can act intelligently and is willing to do so even more in future. Conversely, Lawrence Gonzi is getting the flak for being unprepared and for having to rely exclusively on his slender majority, on the partisan loyalty of recent appointees in key positions as well as on dissenting backbenchers in his own party who were silenced after being offered the posts of parliamentary assistants.
These underhand tactics should come as no surprise to those who must have felt amazed and perplexed when hearing various Nationalist ministers and MPs quoting the eminent and respectable professor, Edward A. Mallia on energy-related issues for partisan ends, only to ignore his comment on The Times website that:
"Use of gasoil will also remove from any future minister responsible for Enemalta the temptation to resort to a 'Gatt solution' should the HFO pollution removal equipment or the hazardous waste export set up fail by allowing all that rubbish to spew out into the air."
Prof. Mallia added that: "This, on a much smaller scale, of course - but it is the principle that counts here - is what Minister (Austin) Gatt did when Mepa stopped the export of fly ash by a local contractor. He had the precipitators turned off, thus exporting the waste to Fgura et al and then persuaded various amateur writers and actors to produce a script for The Black Dust mystery play."
For them, what matters most is politics of convenience not politics of conviction.
In the final analysis, the Nationalists seem to "care" about parliamentary democracy as much as they "really" care about the environment and clean energy.
Mr Brincat is shadow minister for the environment, sustainable development and climate change.
brincat.leo@gmail.com
www.leobrincat.com