Permit me to say how refreshing it was to read Kenneth Wain’s article on democratic governance (June 5).

Although he was critical of some aspects of what I have written recently about politics in Malta, he was courteous and constructive in the way he expressed his views. It made a considerable change from the ad hominem attacks that have recently become the norm.

While I clearly disagree with some things he said, we are at one on the many aspects of democratic government and the rule of law he wrote about and can have a respectful exchange of views.

He took me to task on my use of the phrase “pseudo-political groupings” to describe a section of civil society activists. It is a subject to which I intend to return in future articles. In using this phrase, I was trying to draw a distinction between civil society’s absolute right to peaceful demonstration – such as the involvement of thousands of people in Front Kontra ODZ or those I marched with in Din l-Art Ħelwa – and a small and unrepresentative group who operate under seemingly innocuous banners.

In reality, they are no more than factions of the disaffected wing of the Nationalist Party who find themselves unable to reconcile themselves to their new leader (“because Daphne didn’t approve”). They bear all the characteristics in my judgement of an organised anti-government political grouping regurgitating last year’s lost election, not a civic society pressure group. Hence my use of the purely descriptive “pseudo-political”.

Wain is, of course, right when he says: “Pressure groups are as fundamental to keeping those in power accountable in a democracy as are a free press and media.”

The point is they should clearly be a civil society pressure group and not a political faction masquerading as one.