Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi has more than enough hot potatoes on his plate. Running a restive parliamentary team with a wafer-thin majority in the House is already a testing challenge. Steering an administration under the crushing weight of a structural deficit and a steadily mounting national debt is equally daunting. Piloting Malta through the shoals of a lingering international recession demands his undivided attention.
As if this were not enough, he has, willy-nilly, to tackle the divorce issue − a political hand grenade which has been tossed on his lap by Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando. The latter took the initiative by proposing a Private Member’s Bill without first submitting it for discussion within the Nationalist Party structure and, subsequently, by seeking the open support of Opposition MP Evarist Bartolo.
Not surprisingly, this move fuelled the divorce debate and set the cat among the pigeons at Pietà. The public intervention of big guns like former party leader Eddie Fenech Adami and Minister Austin Gatt is indicative of the mounting tension in the PN ranks.
The fly in the ointment is Dr Pullicino Orlando’s precipitate move when, in fact, no political party represented in Parliament has a mandate on divorce. In complete disregard of this basic fact, Dr Pullicino Orlando moved a Private Member’s Bill to be debated in Parliament without even ascertaining where his party stood on this issue.
In so doing, he deliberately or otherwise, shrugged off an age-old question, basic in practical politics, which is: “What came first, the chicken or the egg?”
In the country at large, there are strong views for and against the introduction of divorce legislation. Both sides are entitled to a fair hearing. The democratic solution, in my view, is a referendum on a yes or no basis. If the answer is yes, Parliament could then debate and legislate on the details, in light of the referendum debate outcome. In that event, no one would be democratically entitled to challenge, much less frustrate, the will of the sovereign electorate. If the answer is no, the matter would stop there, since it would make no sense to go against the sentiment of the people.
In such a scenario, democracy would win the day provided all viewpoints are treated with respect under the umbrella of the guarantees entrenched in Malta’s Constitution.