I really do not find Joseph Muscat’s constant referring to the Nationalist Party as GonziPN productive or palatable. Probably Muscat thinks the same of anyone who still refers to him as “Inhobbkom” Joseph. But this is not about Muscat. This post is about the party that made it to government in 2008 against all odds and got to govern with a one-seat majority. The one-seat majority is Malta’s version of the “majority prize” that adjusts the parliamentary distribution of seats in order to just about have a majority of parliamentary members who were elected on one party ticket. Yes it is important to make that distinction. I did say “elected on one party’s ticket” and not “who support the party”.
It is not too fine a distinction and it is the distinction upon which the current uncertainty of governance lies. Its roots pass through the recruitment stage for candidates in 2008 by the Nationalist party and pass further down through the last leadership battle won by Lawrence Gonzi and lead at to the very bottom of the party’s recent history when the faction based on marketing, polls and pragmatic results started to eat away at the values that defined what the nationalist party represented and most of all that had forged the choices that were at the basis of visions for the future.
The Context
It was a domino effect that resulted from the party’s adaptation to the realities of post-Berlin wall politics – a reality that was only postponed for two reasons. Firstly, in the immediate aftermath of “the End of History” when the continent’s politicians were dabbling with the discourses of Fukuyama, a Nationalist Malta was busy reconstructing a nation from the badly managed socialist heritage of the late seventies and eighties. The “Xogħol, Ġustizzja, Libertà” and “Solidarjetà… dejjem.. kullimkien” slogans were not simply populist mating calls wooing the electorate but building blocks for a new society. There was promise and a set of values around which to plan the future. The nationalist party had no time for internecine squabbles between 1987 and 1994. It was busy.
Then came the second reason for the postponement of any need to adapt to “the End of History”. The challenge to drag an unwilling nation (there never was unanimity in this matter) into the EU proved to be an energy sapping exercise. The mission to join the EU club provided the necessary “value-driven” campaign that could keep the nationalist movement that had been constructed around Eddie Fenech Adami together for a while longer. Last election I wrote many a time that these choices (modernisation, construction of a democratic nation, EU membership) were “obvious choices” for which the PN should not be blowing its own trumpet too often. They may have been obvious to me and to many an educated gent and lady who had lived through the socialist period and longed to join the Western world but they were not obvious for Alfred Sant (and Joseph Muscat at the time) and his freezing of the EU membership bid in 1996 was ironically the freshest breath of air for a nationalist party that had been badly bruised by the electoral result.
In an ironic twist of the historical narrative Dom Mintoff proved to be the saviour of the nationalist party’s renewed bid to join the EU. From the hara-kiri of Sant’s short-lived government to May 2004 the Nationalist machine – party and government – had one obsession, one goal, one direction that did not allow for any distraction (let alone dissension). And then, starting from the infamous Luxol Ground speech by Eddie Fenech Adami the nationalist party lost its reference points and the downward spiral began. Bereft of the main challenges that had kept its clock ticking the PN suddenly discovered that for the first time since 1981 it was a party without a cause. All too suddenly it had become a mirror image of its greatest enemy: all noise and no substance.
All the Men that made GonziPN
This was the party that Lawrence Gonzi inherited after the war of attrition with the Dalli faction. Sure, the rot of many years in power had begun to set in. Sure, the cliques and favors that would eventually translate into media stories of nepotism and friends of friends networks continued to eat at the foundations of a party that had lost its compass. These were effects though, not causes, of the great decline of the PN machinery. 2008 was the benchmark year. In order to win at the polls again the PN dropped any remaining travesty of being a party with a plan and transformed into a Presidential movement. PN became GonziPN and the party machinery ditched the value-driven inspiration in favour of the marketing machinery and the dogs of war.
Having an opposition that puts up a feeble fight did not help obviate the redundancies in the policy category. After all who needs ideas when you can win by simply saying “Don’t vote for the other?”. The race for number one votes on the ballots meant that the web cast for potential candidates was as wide as possible (and with the only consideration being vote pulling factor). Errors that had already been committed at local council level with unpalatable candidates being preferred in favour of statistical and numerical victories were now repeated at national level. How did the Pullicino Orlando’s, the Mugliett’s and the Debono’s end up on the nationalist benches in parliament? Ask the 2008 “successful” campaigners – they will tell you. All that GonziPN needed was a slogan – a dream that might link its quest to past substance – and even for that it went and filched it off Monsieur Sarkozy. “Ensemble tout est possible” became unshamefacedly “Flimkien kollox possibli”. The die was cast.
Few would deny that the 2008 victory was a victory by default. GonziPN did not win the election, it was Sant’s Labour that lost it. Before long heroes such as JPO were bouncing up and down on their seats – not content to have survived the travesty of marketing and bitching that could have very well meant the downfall of this kind of politic had Sant played his cards properly. There can be no doubt that the downfall of this government was fashioned within the halls of Dar Centrali back in 2008 when the decision was made to transform a movement of social values and economic well-being into a presidential party honed for power without a back up plan.
Such short-sightedness was also the result of an unwillingness to engage with its own roots and to take up the unfinished business of creating a post-Berlin Wall raison d’etre. It was a mixture of laziness and excessive confidence that combined with a new generation of Young Turks who had been bred to unquestionably blend in to the echelons of power without engaging with new ideas. The PN born out of the 2008 election was the final death stab at the inspirational party that had read the national narrative so well for so long. From the moment GonziPN’s disparate motley crew took its place in parliament to govern with its artificial relative majority, “uncertainty” was a time bomb waiting to happen.
Dealing with Franco
Delaying writing this post has had its advantages. By now the General Council has ended and we all know how Lawrence Gonzi has chosen to deal with the hot potato that is Franco Debono. Can it be surprising that the party that opted for the Presidential-style mould will try to solve this latest challenge by reinforcing the presidential image? The end-of-term leadership race will in all probability turn into a victory by acclamation by Lawrence Gonzi. Who will dare stir the boat any further? Inevitably the leadership “challenge” will buy the PN time in government. Franco can no longer legitimately yell his lack of confidence in Lawrence Gonzi – even he will have to bow to the nationalist party’s vote.
Buying time also means buying time for the government projects that were coming to their end to be finalised. There will inevitably be accusatory fingers pointed at projects and laws finished and enacted on the eve of an election. Honestly speaking most would have been end-of-term projects anyway and would have suffered the same fate. That is not the biggest problem for GonziPN. The biggest problem is that this “leadership race” is the last-ditch reaction by Lawrence Gonzi and worse, an insistence on engaging within the “presidential” context dynamic. What remains to be seen and what is of paramount importance for the party is whether it is learning from the past mistakes. To do so it has to acknowledge them humbly and prepare to rebuild from scratch.
2012 is many political light years away from 1989. It might still not be too late for the nationalist party to make an appointment with history and use this latest borrowed time to take up real politics (not realpolitik) once again. For that it needs less noise, less drama, less taste-based propaganda and bull and to concentrate on the substance. Values, policies and a bottom-up realisation that this is the time to face new challenges within new parameters might only just make it.
Will fate throw another lifeline for the PN and spare it the (by now very necessary) years of rebuilding in opposition? We can only hope that if it does then the Nationalist party gets down to the real business of politics.
11 replies on “Malta Post Franco (III) – GonziPN”
The party in government says that the country does not afford a general election. It then anounces a leadership contest!
you sound like David Danny. a general election is not a leadership contest no?
Thanks Jacques (assuming I was the David mentioned). Great minds think alike. Obviously there is a difference between a general election and a party leadership election. However they are also similar as both elections which determine who will lead the country in the future.
I think the point by my fellow commentator wasn’t if these elections are similar or different. The point is the “economic” argument, which I never really understood, that the country does not “afford” an election. Is the “economy” more important than democracy?
Thanks Jacque and David (who is David Danny Jacque, or rather what does he stand for?). I think that David Borg’s points are closer to my reaction. We are being told that a national election is not in the national interest. Why? The impression that i get from the PN rhetoric is that bit tajjeb u l-hazin the Gonzi administration is steering Malta through troubled waters and it is important that it continues to make ‘crucial’ decisions as per Libya crises partly because it is in the know and partly because the labour option is not capable to do what the the Gonzi ‘oligarchy’ can (I still wonder what great decisions were taken at the time but anyways that is beside the point). Therefore I assume that no-elections now translates in ‘we need the continuity of Dr Gonzi’s rule because he knows x’hemm fil-borma type of thing and the other lot can not be trusted bla bla. But the next thing we know is that Gonzi with his hand firmly on the wheel announces a Party Leadership contest that may challenge his position. OK so by this morning this comes across as your average North Korean carry-on with the big photo of the leader and the so called pretenders giving their unqualified support to the man himself. Here I do not see any underpinnings committed to proper governance but political stratagems or has all political initiative been relegated to strategy for power?. Should an election be called, Dr Gonzi will continue to have his hands on the wheel to make whatever crucial decisions necessary. With an internal leadership contest and a wobbly parliamentary majority, governance becomes more frigid for a much longer period. And by the way, if this is not a good time, than why will it be a good time when it actually becomes due?… Is not ‘this is not a good time’ the oft repeated argument of … i more and more believe that this ‘this is not the right time’ cliché is indeed one of the most glaring reasons why an election should be called immediately. After all, we seem to be all convinced that this parliament will not run its course and that an early election will be called. Yet how does a piece of news that says that owners of plots have been paid by this Government at current prices! and the occupiers of the properties built on said plots are now full owners of the properties (an issue that has been lingering for decades)? Re democracy vs economy, I say that the economy gives people a fish for the day while democracy gives people the ability to fish (even if the capitalist culture has gone to extremes to threaten the open market philosophy linked to democracy and so capitalism – or the global economy to the squeamish – has become the biggest threat to democracy).
@Danny a short comment. I agree that there seems to be a contradiction between “the country cannot afford an election” and “we will have a leadership contest”. Of course a leadership contest WOULD normally imply a period of instability. One question I have is whether Dr Gonzi should have resigned as party leader until the race or whether he is there as interim leader now.
On the other hand on a national level we are being asked on the assumption that the nation cannot “afford” an election now (not in the literal, economic sense that David Borg loves so much) which can be translated to : “we may be bad but at least we know what we are doing ” (vide your “borma” analogy). It’s constitutionally shaky but we all know what is really happening here – time is being bought or borrowed. Who knows what interest will be paid on this one.
What a pity your reading of the political scene within the PN is not more widely read AND understood. I spent Saturday night debating with friends of a certain status and intelligence – until I realised that when talking to a ‘Nazzjonalist ippatentjat’ it is as productive as talking to a cactus in the desert in the middle of a sandstorm.
How incredibly naive can the card carrying members of the PN be not to see through the great leader’s transparent humility…for God’s sake couldn’t he come up with a better line than that? And, amazingly enough, we had the ‘vici-kap’ tell us (wonder of wonders) that the private members bill promoted by Franco Debono is right and should be pushed through. Now I’ve heard many conspiracy theories, but there’s no need for that here – its so bloody obvious what deal has been accorded at that Sunday meeting in Castille, that even with the couple of brain cells that I have left I can see the connection.
And so, the weak Gonzi manages to slip away for another time, and that is to the detriment of the PN, because the only way that he will be made to move out is by losing an election, instead of on the basis of his non leadership performances these last 4 years. His coterie of inefficient, ineffective ministers will just hang on instead of getting kicked in the butt for their dismal lack of delivery and by stretching their run to the last possible moment it will not be beneficial to either the national interest or the PN.
But that’s the way we do things on this rock, without long term vision or for the common good…unfortunately
Jacques, aren’t you missing a few important things here? Like Debono’s (a) retaining his seat, (b) saying that he’d be ready to serve under anyone but Gonzi and (c) not voting for a no-confidence motion (after saying that he agreed to its being tabled)? He obviously wants the Nationalists in office, with the same parliamentary group but with a different PM (and Cabinet, but that a consequential matter).
When you take these things into consideration the calling of a leadership contest is, really, a no-brainer. If Debono’s Mr “Anyone” does not turn up for the appointment (not least, because nobody wants to take the helm of the Party when there’s barely a year and a half max to an election it can hardly be expected to win), we’ll see if Debono will then act on his gushing expression of loyalty to the Nationalist Party.
I wouldn’t say that those considerations are “missing”. Yes the leadership contest call was a no-brainer – though whether it is, itself, well timed is another matter. The sole purpose of the contest now is to buy time… rather than collapse on Confidence Vote Day the government has played its own hand and obliged Franco to delay any inevitable final stance or say he might have as to when the next election will be held. In which case all the arguments re: appointments with history (whether attended to or missed) still stand.
Being so sock-sure that this is all about “buying time”, maybe you could enlighten us to which end. “Confidence Vote Day”? When’s that when there’s no motion tabled? And if Debono decided to get serious in toppling the Government he (and the Opposition) do not have to wait for the outcome of the Nationalist leadersip vote, do they?
OMG, did I say “sock-sure”?
Interesting exchange. Allow me to extend argument to the need for ‘less… taste based propoganda’. Take the unemplyment percentage given as indicator of where we stand in Europe. The given percentage appears low because population participation in economic activity is also low. As a rule-of-thumb indicator, the eu percentag of unemployed when compared to population is of circa 4.5% as compared to Malta’s 1.7% – a far cry from the 20% unemplyment figures brandished out of context by PN spinners. We may perhaps also test the argument by approaching it from a different angle – earnings per capita of the countries held to us as having gone to the wall. Italy 25k per capita, Spain 22k per capita, Ireland 30k Greece 18k (ok this is provisional etc) Portugal 16k Malta’s 14.8k per capita. I still consider Malta’s performance as good but the comparisons to other countries who are having their difficulties is to my mind grossly out of context. A fat man can lose 20 kilos but a thin man has hardly any fat to lose.