Various reasons have been ascribed to the Partit Demokratiku’s decision to join forces with the Nationalist Party in the Forza Nazzjonali coalition.
Some are predictably cynical in nature. The Prime Minister’s self-centred assertion that the only thing that unites us is hatred for him does not even deserve comment.
And then there’s the accusation that the party was set up simply to further its leader’s personal ambition, whether it is to become a minister or something else. This is easily contradicted by the fact that we have set no such demands as a precondition for joining the coalition.
Of course, the electoral manifesto had to be one we all agreed upon, and as a small party that is yet to celebrate its first anniversary, we are happy that many proposals we hold dear will hopefully be implemented by the next government, depending on the election results.
But while many issues are dear to us, they alone are not the main reason for our entry into the political scene. Anyone can make good proposals – Labour’s 2013 manifesto provides ample evidence of this.
More important, this time round, is ensuring that the government led by Joseph Muscat is defeated. But in the long run, the biggest problem isn’t the Muscat government: it’s that as things stand, any future government can easily follow in its footsteps and act in bad faith. All it takes is a stable parliamentary majority, as Malta’s Constitution, regrettably, does little to prevent such abuses.
We need to make sure that any future Prime Minister seeking to govern in bad faith will have as little room to do so as possible
The Constitution may have been amended multiple times but much of it remains rooted in the Independence Constitution of 1964, which sought, among other things, to ensure a smooth transition from colonial rule by changing existing structures as little as possible. In the process, the Prime Minister – and Cabinet by association – ended up gaining a considerable amount of power with the removal of the colonial post of governor-general.
Parliament can theoretically keep the executive in check, but since most decisions require the backing of a simple majority, and party loyalty is often placed above everything else, it rarely amounts to anything more than a rubber-stamp, even during a government’s worst excesses.
Ironically, even Labour had recognised the need for constitutional reform, and promised a constitutional convention – another in an endless list of broken promises – to address it. But once in government, it preferred to cynically exploit the weaknesses it promised to address every step of the way.
So while the convention had been to appoint people to key posts – such as the judiciary – whose political independence was beyond doubt, no law dictated this should be so. As a result, we’ve seen people who are active politicians one day and supposedly-independent judges the next. At the same time, a succession of police commissioners apparently selected for their fawning admiration of the government has exposed the police force to ridicule through their obvious reluctance to investigate any wrongdoing by those who appointed them.
Controversial contracts with sketchy companies – on citizenship, health, energy and other sectors – have been kept secret, even from Parliament, which was thus denied its ability to scrutinise even as it was asked to approve them. And the waste of public funds is always wrong, but it is even more so in sketchy circumstances, such as the controversial deal with Marco Gaffarena that stinks of insider trading.
These are but a few examples of misrule we have witnessed in just four years, but it is not enough to simply promise that we will not repeat these mistakes.
We need to make it impossible for anyone who succeeds us to do so, to make sure that any future Prime Minister seeking to govern in bad faith will have as little room to do so as possible.
The first proposals in our coalition’s manifesto concern the need to clean up Malta’s political system once and for all, including through substantial constitutional revisions that will limit the government’s power by increasing that of Parliament and other constituted bodies.
That these proposals have pride of place in our manifesto is no accident. If there is one legacy we wish to leave behind, this is it.
Karl Camilleri is the secretary general of Partit Demokratiku.