As the Nationalist Party conducts a soul-searching exercise to elect its new leader, one of the contenders, Alex Perici Calascione, tells Kurt Sansone that he will adopt a bottom-up approach to politics.
You formed part of the party’s administration over the past four years, the team that lost so heavily at the last election. Isn’t this a handicap?
My area of concern was party finances, and that in itself is a success story. From the situation we found four years ago to where we are now, we have come forward in leaps and bounds. Although it may be fashionable now for some people to say that whatever was done in the past four years was wrong, that is an entirely wrong conclusion. For the first two years, we had to concentrate on the party structures. A lot of work was done, and I will not qualify that as being a failure.
In your leadership campaign so far you have been quite vehement on the need to change party structures. If what was done was good, why change it?
My campaign is clear. I will not come forward and say I will change everything, because that presumes what was done in the past four years and by previous administrations was wrong. There are three realities in the party. There is a lot of good that needs to continue being strengthened, there are a lot of areas where the potential is not being reached, and there are things that have to be changed. I am all for change where it is necessary and when it is done wisely. I am not for change just because it is fashionable to criticise the past.
Through my experience. I am well placed to know where we need to push more and where we need to change but definitely also what we need to keep.
Where did it go wrong for the PN in the last election?
We failed to be in sync with what was making people tick. At the end of the day you can have a perfect strategy and plan to move forward but if it is not in sync with the realities people are living, with what makes them take certain decisions, with the priorities they have – from the little things in life to the more important decisions, including how to vote – it will not work.
Had you become a one-issue party preaching on corruption and bad governance, which just painted a picture of doom and gloom that offered no hope?
Although corruption was an issue that overshadowed all others, let us not for one minute underestimate what we are talking about. Corruption is not a minor issue, and everyone involved in politics, not only the PN, should stand up to corruption. Let that be clear. However, reality did show that although people were aware of corruption, when it came to actually voting, people were interested much more in why they should vote Nationalist rather than why they should not vote Labour. That is where we failed to push our message through. We came up with an excellent set of proposals but overshadowed them by saying the election was more about principles than proposals.
I am all for change where it is necessary and when it is done wisely. I am not for change just because it is fashionable to criticise the past
Surveys did show corruption was a major concern for people. The PN interpreted this as people being fed up with the government’s scandals. Could it be that people saw corruption in both major parties, drawing no difference between the Panama Papers scandal and the financing of the PN by the db Group through false invoices?
Rather than facing its own corruption issues, the Labour Party was insisting on its rhetoric that the PN had its own problems and should not be talking about corruption. That was the weakest stand the PL could have taken, because it did not defend its position but simply tried to sway attention from its problems. Corruption, wherever it stems from and whoever is involved in it is wrong.
In saying this I do not interpret the election result as meaning we have a population that does not give a toss about corruption. Even if the PN may have its own problems, and I am not referring to the db issue, which is being contested, it is definitely not an excuse to look the other way. Even more than the single cases of corruption, what worries me is the running trait within this government’s performance of ‘anything goes’. There is something further we have to aspire to, and this is wise governance.
The last time the PN garnered an absolute majority in the country in any election was 2003. What has happened?
My main concern is looking forward. Looking back, one can identify some reasons that lie in the message, some in the messenger and the people to whom the message is addressed. But since 2003, we have had a continued transformation of Maltese society, which is not just generational. We believe that younger voters are more prone to change but we have also seen transformational thought in middle-aged and elderly people. We may have the message and messenger but we need to understand the audience even more and understand how it has changed.
In the southern districts, the PN has for two consecutive elections suffered a rout. There seems to be a complete disconnect between the PN and people in these districts. Why?
Indeed why? Here again we have to understand the social fabric. Those are areas where successive Nationalist governments invested heavily. The greater and more important projects in the south were spearheaded by PN governments. The Vittoriosa waterfront, the removal of the Dock One wall in Cospicua and its transformation, the regeneration of the housing estate in Cospicua and the Marsascala bypass were all projects carried out by PN governments, and yet we have these results.
We need to go back to the drawing board to see what makes people tick. Although we are a small country, we do have localities, even within the same electoral districts, that have different realities. We have to understand this and go back to basics by conducting politics from the bottom up.
Could the American University of Malta controversy have been misjudged by the PN?
I honestly do not believe so, because there are worrying aspects. There was the environmental aspect: we are talking about a jewel of a place being lost not for a public purpose. And the private enterprise itself raised more questions than it gave answers. Our stand before the election was that if this guy [the Jordanian investor] is serious about his investment, let us find out more and encourage him to find other sites.
Are you so convinced that the majority of people in the south were against that type of investment when the same community had a recycling plant imposed on it by a previous PN administration?
Two wrongs do not make a right. There are times when you have to stick up for what is right. I am sure there are many people in the area who are all out to see if they can rent their properties. The project will leave a spillover effect, but did it have to take that prime land for peanuts? Could it not have been done in a different way? Have we come to a stage that it is either giving away prime land for the investment or nothing? Again, the answer is wise governance.
You speak of conducting politics from the bottom up. Last week, veteran MP Mario Galea criticised Simon Busuttil for his ‘authoritarian’ style. Do you agree?
Mario Galea has a right to express his opinion, but I do not agree with the way he expressed his opinion. We have structures, and this debate should be held within those structures. The bottom-up approach I advocate is not a reaction to the past four years, but it has been missing from the PN for a good number of years.
In the 1970s, particularly with the reforms introduced by then general secretary Louis Galea, there was much more active participation by the grass roots in policy formation. We lost that along the years, for a variety of reasons, also because the philosophy changed. This is what I aim to reintroduce.
Many inside the party and out criticise the outgoing administration for appropriating everything Daphne Caruana Galizia has said as if she was the one setting the PN’s agenda. Are they right?
Nobody should set the agenda for the PN, except the PN itself. When I say nobody, I mean neither the Labour Party, nor the government, nor any journalist or blogger. I make no distinction between one and the other. A political party has its own agenda and chooses its own battles and forwards its proposals and shoulders the consequences of its actions.
A journalist, a blogger and any other person has the full right to express himself or herself freely without fear or favour, but just as a journalist has his or her task cut out, a political party has its own job to do. There should be respect, but everyone has to stick to his task. A politician should not try to be a journalist, because we would be awful journalists, and a journalist should not be a politician. There are clear lines of demarcation and they have to be adhered to.
Were they always adhered to?
As far as I know… [pauses at length]
Take the Egrant case and the allegation that Michelle Muscat owned the company.
The cases where it seemed the lines of demarcation were not adhered to were more a result of the greatness of the story and its implications rather than the influence of whoever wrote it. Irrespective of whether you follow Daphne Caruana Galizia or not, or whether you choose to believe the Prime Minister, it was a story that definitely demanded attention. And it is still ongoing.
The attention the PN gave it went as far as organising a street protest.
The protest was the end result of one scandal after another rather than a singular case. It was more a reaction to the Prime Minister’s behaviour faced with allegations of corruption rather than allegations linked to the singular case.
We have to acknowledge that the implications of what was being alleged were serious. I will not comment about the case, because a magisterial inquiry is ongoing.
I believe that too much has been said by everyone concerned and that we should not put any additional pressure on the magistrates involved in all of the pending investigations.
How would you have voted on divorce and gay marriage if you were an MP?
On divorce, I personally took the party line [the PN decided to oppose divorce in the run-up to the referendum] but after the referendum I would have voted in favour. On gay marriage, I would have voted in favour.
Tonio Fenech has accused the current leadership of having refused an internal debate on gay marriage after the decision to abstain on civil unions in 2014. There is evidently a split within the PN on issues of morality. How do you plan to tackle this?
Article 2 of our statute specifically states that our principles and values owe their inspiration to Christian principles and values. That is an undeniable fact, and God forbid anyone in the party should seek to wiggle out of it or feel ashamed because of this.
But we are also a political party, not a Church organisation, and have to transpose those principles and values into policies, knowing that they have to be designed for people who are not Christian and may believe in anything
But we are also a political party, not a Church organisation, and have to transpose those principles and values into policies, knowing that they have to be designed for people who are not Christian and may believe in anything.
It so happens that those Christian values are of themselves of universal application. Social justice, equality before the law, solidarity, the value of life, irrespective of whether you are Christian or not, are values applicable to all of society.
Those same principles and values are also in themselves challenging.
We are not some Communist Party that sits down and accepts things blindly. We debate, and God bless that debate.
But people like Edwin Vassallo say the gay marriage proposal in the manifesto was imposed on the party by Simon Busuttil.
These principles and values encourage debate but they also give a framework that should lead to convergence. My main issue with Edwin Vassallo’s stand was that the free vote was requested because he alleged a lack of debate within the parliamentary group.
What worries me is the lack of debate, not the free vote per se.
One of the major issues you will face almost immediately if elected leader is the proposed change to the in-vitro fertilisation law.
There are three challenges coming up: the IVF law, the legalisation of cannabis and prostitution. I believe there are more urgent issues the government needs to tackle, but to me it seems that half of the urgency is linked to the perception that government can score political points by hitting the Opposition where it thinks it is weakest. Nonetheless, in all three cases, there has to be full, honest debate within the PN organs.
It bothers me that government is adopting a political agenda to push forward on IVF, because it is a sensitive debate that impacts some people when they are most vulnerable.
We have an obligation as politicians to make an informed decision. We need to speak to the experts involved and have all the technical opinions on board. We can then have a debate and reach convergence.
Do you agree with embryo freezing?
My personal view is against embryo freezing. It disturbs me a lot. We are talking of life here. I do realise and appreciate what people trying to conceive pass through but we have to lay down parameters. I am open to having more information from people who are technically involved with the subject, but I start from the position of not being in favour.
Are you confident you can be one of two candidates making it to the final round?
I have full confidence that the PN councillors will choose wisely.