What follows is a strange kind of guest post. It comes to J’accuse via a serendipitous trip through time and space. It’s the kind of post that has been just been waiting to surface and I cannot agree more with the argument being made by the guest writer whom I shall call DeLorean. It is an impassioned argument set out against the constitutional provisions that were framed in 1991 to keep the PLPN system working. It’s not pro-ad, it’s pro-democracy, representation and choice. Read it. It’s important – for you and for future generations.
The argument
Many people have been misguided into thinking that the fight over [the electoral laws] has something to do with Alternattiva Demokratika. It does not. It has everything to do with resisting the entrenchment of the two-party system.
During a discussion on broadcasting […], one prominent government minister (that was gratuitous… all ministers are prominent) remarked that he “firmly believed” in the two-party system “because this makes the country more governable”. It was all I could do to fight the urge to throw my handbag at him, and point out that, following his line of argument, the most governable countries of all should be those with one party. But that, as we all know, has failed.
Belief in a two-party state is belief in a form of totalitarianism masquerading as democracy. All we have now is a political see-saw, with a fat Nationalist boy sitting on one end, and a pudgy Socialist boy on the other. First one goes up, then the other. Is this a wonderful state of affairs, to be preserved at all costs? Should governability enter the argument at all? Who cares about governability, if in ensuring governability we strangle the democratic process? Governability is not the Holy Grail, and we should not allow the government to sell it to us as such.
Individual members of both the government and the opposition have expressed their delight in the two-party system. They have not dared express their real longing: for a one-party system. When a party believes that it fulfils all the needs of all the Maltese people – how dare anyone claim to do so, and still they do – the next step is to claim that it should govern ad aeternum. Why not, once it is so damn perfect?
Third parties cannot be created out of nothing. They must grow, and their growth must be spawned by a real need within the people. Even if this need exists – and there is no doubt at all, it does – all growth will be warped by Malta’s all-pervasive fear and ignorance, which has effects similar to that of radiation on a growing foetus. Through this fear and ignorance, the Nationalist Party and the Labour Party survive, thrive and continue to grow.
Meanwhile the Maltese population lives in an atmosphere of political instability. I define political instability as not knowing what life holds for one after each election, of the necessity of mapping one’s life in a series of five-year plans.
Austin Gatt is right: on paper, the [constitutional electoral provisions] favour the small parties. In practice, they mostly do not. It is practice that concerns us here, and not theory. Dr. Gatt is almost certainly unable to stand up and say, with his hand on his heart, that the [constitutional provisions] will not, in practice adversely affect any small party. They will be a death knell. They will also discourage the growth of political parties in the future, which is a cause for grave concern.
Alternattiva is not the crux of the problem. The hypothetical small party is. Many people might disapprove of Alternattiva, but they should not be so shortsighted as to assume that they will disapprove of any other political party that might grow out of unrest and discontent over the next two or three generations. We must be unselfish enough to think beyond the next two or three generations.
We must be honest enough to admit that we do not want our children to live their adult lives as we are now living ours. We must stop thinking in terms of our immediate future, because many of us will live for a great deal longer than that, certainly longer than most of the politicians [who are now readying themselves to vote, using a hammer and chisel, on amendments to our Constitution].
What if we find ourselves, in 20 years’ time with the choice of two absolutely disreputable political parties? What if the Nationalist Party disintegrates into the kind of sagging, soggy, useless mess of the Sixties… a heap that gave rise to the joke “Tgħajjatx għax tqajjem il-gvern!”? What is a traditionally Nationalist supporter supposed to do… vote for the Labour Party, vote for a mess, or not vote at all?
[… fragments lost]
This article originally appeared in The Sunday Times of Malta on the 3rd November 1991.
(To understand the future, we have to go back in time).
17 replies on “Voting like it’s 1992”
The whole article is based on a fallacy – that the people who approve of a two party system would also argue that a one-party system would be even preferable.
A false syllogism, if there ever was one.
…but of course YOU would say that. Your party is one of the two dictating teams. Doesn’t make you any wiser though. Perhaps you missed the “because this makes the country more governable” part; and yes, a dictator would totally agree.
taste your own medicine of sorts…perfect timing with the Briguglio thing too. But why the anonimity?
Often it’s the message that counts not the messenger Patrick. Can you imagine what bull Victor would come up with if he could concentrate on who wrote the article rather than on extracting imagined faux syllogisms instead?
Unfair and gratuitous. You can do better than that, surely.
Jacques does do better, regularly. You, on the other hand, Victor, rarely rise above the mediocre.
and?
A certain Daphne Caruana Galizia maybe?
I was already a fairly avid reader of opinion columns back then in 1991 but don’t recall ever having read this article. What can one say? 1) Bingo a la Christoph Waltz 2) It’s an extremely weird “I told you so” moment relived not in the future with hindsight but in the present with reference to the past and 3) The style is unmistakeable so the most generous thing one can probbaly say is that the daily grind in Two-Party No Exit Malta eventually batters even the more open of minds. And that is truly a sad, sad thing.
The recent events should be an eye opener.
Governance is a question of right priorities and has nothing to do with the number of parties in parliament. Coalitions have proved a constant source of governmets limping through a legislature when they manage to do a whole one.
What if parliament depends on one single AD rep?
Would he/she call the shots, like say, fixing problems in the energy sector because there is no agreement on hunting and bird trapping?
If the polls are anything to go by, it’s not going to be a mere one-seat majority this time round. Your hypothesis is unrealistic, at least for this election.
Also, it is beside the point to speculate whether AD will form part of a coalition government or opposition at this juncture. What is relevant – as the original DeLorean pointed out – is representation i.e. that AD gets a seat in parliament, independently of the result of the other two parties and their formation. Or as the original DeLorean put it:
“Who cares about governability, if in ensuring governability we strangle the democratic process? Governability is not the Holy Grail, and we should not allow the government to sell it to us as such.”
Regarding the alleged prescience of this “anonymous” writer, in this week’s election a voter can choose between 3 political parties, and so the writer does not seem so prescient. It must also be pointed out that if a political party has a majority of MPs in Parliament, an AD or other third party MP will not be part of any coalition and no issue of government stability arises.
Hi,
I was in Valletta this a.m. with an hour to spare, so I thought I’d pop into the Library and find your “lost fragments” for you. Here they are: http://sphotos-f.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/734458_10151367524493127_691507872_n.jpg
Oh, and El Pibe was right. It was “Daphne on Sunday”. Who is now doing her level best to scare people off from voting AD.
Tempous mutantur and all that jazz.
*Tempus – excuse typo.
[…] will have recognised the car from Back to the Future). You can see the full article here in “Voting like it’s 1992” – actually it’s the second half of the original article, the first half was full […]
[…] Belief in a two-party state is belief in a form of totalitarianism masquerading as democracy. All we have now is a political see-saw, with a fat Nationalist boy sitting on one end, and a pudgy Socialist boy on the other. First one goes up, then the other. Is this a wonderful state of affairs, to be preserved at all costs? Should governability enter the argument at all? Who cares about governability, if in ensuring governability we strangle the democratic process? Governability is not the Holy Grail, and we should not allow the government to sell it to us as such. (Unearthed by J’accuse) […]