I am, grudgingly I might add, a great admirer of Talleyrand. An arch-chameleon who managed to survive and thrive under; wait for it; the Ancien Regime of Louis XVI as Bishop of Autun, the French Revolution as a Jacobin, the Directoire, the Consulate and then the French Empire of Napoleon as his chief minister, the restored Louis XVIII and Charles X... which brings us to 1830 when the French had had quite enough of the absolutist Charles X and were, once again, as is their wont, rioting in the streets of Paris.
Talleyrand, probably the world's first political technocrat, was watching the skirmishes at the barricades from the windows of the Tuileries surrounded by a host of secretaries and acolytes. He was by now the Grand Old man of French politics. At one point he was heard to mutter: "Ah, good, we are winning" at which one intrepid attendant asked him: "Monseigneur, who is winning?" "I'll tell you tomorrow," replied Talleyrand with a half smile.
A survivor like Talleyrand gave short shrift of ideologies and beliefs; blind loyalties were not part of his make-up and his outlook on life must have been pretty cynical. He is, admittedly, an extreme case, yet, it would do us all a world of good to look at our lives and our futures without being swayed by habit, tradition or plain timidity of "what people might say". For too long our political power blocs, the PN and the PL, have been sustained and nourished by the blind party loyalty of their core supporters. Any shift in party loyalty is looked upon as some sort of apostasy, especially if one is perceived to have had any sort of benefit, no matter how niggling, from the party one supported in the past. One is simply not allowed to use one's little grey cells thereby reducing politics to something as mundane as a football game between Valletta and Floriana and everyone knows how unreasoning and extreme those team supporters are.
Marisa Micallef, former chairman of the Housing Authority and ex-PN candidate has "crossed the floor" and Malta and his wife are abuzz. Had she become a Buddhist nun, the talk would not have been as fraught with emotion. Ms Micallef has switched allegiances making it very clear that she does not care for the reactionary and static government of Lawrence Gonzi and hopes, like many people who are fed up to the teeth with this Administration, that, by 2013, Joseph Muscat will have proved himself an effective and statesmanlike alternative, something he is already well on the way to being. Because Ms Micallef was once a PN candidate, a PN appointed chairman to a government body and was, at the time, an avidly followed columnist who opposed Alfred Sant, the present volte-face has shocked the establishment. I cannot imagine why as the writing has long been on the wall for all to read.
Maltese politics went all pear-shaped when Dr Sant did not step down in 1998. He gambled an early election and lost ignominiously. In his own words, his name should have been cast into the dustbins of political history. Instead he clung on, or was made to cling on to the leadership, plunging the party into ever more soul-destroying defeats and placing the PN in an ever-increasing state of semi-despotism. Because he refused to budge by 2008, the floaters had no choice but to vote in the PN yet again. The victory was marginal and the honeymoon very brief. As we all know, the cracks that were just about whitewashed by Gonzipn have reappeared with a vengeance and you will surely recall that Malta went into a state of hiatus till the Cabinet was reappointed and that also people were far more interested as to who was going to be PL leader.
The credit crunch gave the PN all the excuses in the world not to fulfil its pie in the sky electoral promises. We are challenged and affronted by projects like the nonsensical roofless theatre in Valletta and ultra partisan proposals such as September 21 to be our National Day. Add Fairmont and SmartCity, the state of culture and the arts, the deficit, Mepa and the total absence of any tangible result from joining the EU apart from controversies like spring hunting; these have simply negated all the good the PN has wrought for Malta since 1987. The PN has simply outstayed its welcome and knows it.
Ms Micallef is a pragmatic realist. She is too intellectual and intelligent to be described as a political opportunist. That would be insulting.
She knows, like you know in your heart of hearts, that there is as much chance of the PN being re-elected as an ice cube in hell unless we strike oil, which is unlikely. Malta needs a strong and effective government and we cannot afford to have more of the same as we have today where the one-seat majority is continually threatened by disgruntled backbenchers and disgraced ex-ministers. Malta cannot afford to have a future PL government in the same position and for the sake of Malta it is in everybody's interest for the re-emerging PL to become stronger, more united and, hence, able to win the next election with greater consensus. Forget the bickering and leave blind loyalty in the football grounds where it belongs.
kzt@onvol.net