I don’t know whether Carm Mifsud Bonnici has his own facebook account – though I know that he does blog on a regular basis. If he does have a facebook account – or if he did – it would be fitting if his current status read “serene”. He told reporters that felt serene both before and after the vote of confidence and this because he was prepared for every eventuality. Kudos to Carm Mifsud Bonnici who has opted to put on a brave display of cool, calm and a very Christian (democrat) form of zen. It is no coincidence that the emotional and physical behaviour of Mifsud Bonnici provide a stark contrast to the picture of a power hungry, angry and revengeful Franco Debono.
Joseph Muscat may have stressed the fact that this government (read the parliamentary group) remains divided and that no amount of confidence motions survived with the speaker’s vote or that of a recalcitrant Debono will improve the situation but the leader of the progressive movement may be missing the wood for the trees. The lack of political acumen in Labour is ever so glaringly obvious when they persist in error. The very rift that caused glee among labourite supporters and among those nationalists who are dying to spite GonziPN by seeing the end of it is the very foundation upon which the nationalist party’s potential revival is built upon.
How I hear you ask? Well to begin with the issue of the CMB motion was an eye opener of itself. Politics as it should be was nowhere to be seen. You may get the sweeping statements about the “unjust justice system” and you may have an opposition spokesman turning a list of grievances about the courts, the police and the laws into a show of unhappiness. What we did have in actual terms however was a bloodthirsty attack at the throat of an ex-Minister – for by the time the motion was presented (and amended into a call for resignation) that was what CMB had become.
If the subject of the motion had been the supposedly disastrous state of affairs in the justice ministry then the only resignation that should have been demanded – and a symbolic one at that – should have been of the Minister currently in charge of the portfolio. That would be Minister Chris Said. So many lessons of ministerial responsibility, collective responsibility, governmental responsibility had been given in press conferences and long-winded speeches that one would have expected this motion to be directed at the right person. But no.
And it is evident why not. Because politics and responsibility had nothing to do with this motion. Whether or not you agree with the ills that befell our justice and security systems in the past few years, your cause, your petita was not considered one bit. Instead – as has been widely documented – this was a vendetta. It was personal.
J’accuse has elsewhere complained about the use of certain terminology in politics. The martyr complex, the excessive descriptions of “suffering” and “hurt”. A large part of our voting masses reason in these terms. It is no crude calculation on the basis of policies but rather a complex build up of emotions where a partisan DNA struggles with feeling of entitlement, chips on the shoulder and some weird collective illusion that politicians suffer whenever they “serve” the people.
Carm Mifsud Bonnici’s serene acceptance of the inevitable outcome of the vendetta plot is no cup of hemlock. It is a rallying call. Strategically the moment of serenity is a necessary stroke of genius. Given that the political battle on a national level seems to have taken the direction of being fought out on the emotional rather than the factual fields then might as well take the cue early in this pre-election run. Mifsud Bonnici’s serenity comes out stronger when contrasted to the actions of his self-appointed nemesis Debono and that of the braying power-or-nothing pitchfork gang on the benches of the opposition.
We would have thought that exposing the absolute vacuum that is Labour’s sum total of projects and preparedness for its time in government would have been enough for PN to have a field day. On second thoughts and having seen the latest events unfold we cannot but applaud the emotional counter-moves that have begun to surface. If anything it will distract attention from the embarassing gaffes being committed in the social marketing field – better known as the mychoice.pn campaign.
12 replies on “The politics of serenity”
Indeed, the irony that CMB was being sacrificed, for all the (non-)reasons you mention, when the head that technically should have been under the guillotine (and with much more well-founded cause, may I add) was Chris Said’s, did not go unnoticed by many.
I’m sorry Chris but I have a problem with too many negatives in one sentence. Are you saying that there are reasons for Chris Said to be accountable other than the principle of ministerial responsibility? As for the second sentence – did many notice that Chris Said’s should have been the name on the motion? Or did they not?
Let’s be wankellectuals for a day, shall we?
First, a motion of no confidence in a Minister. I don’t think I ever heard of anything of the sort in a parliamentary democracy. Confidence votes are taken in relation to the Prime Minister as head of government, at most the Speaker (who is, after all, an official of the House). A Minister needs to enjoy the confidence of his Prime Minister not the House. Art. 80 of the Constitution makes it clear that the House should nowhere feature in the appointment of a Minister.
This applies a fortiori to the other motion against Cachia Caruana which, containing serious charges (including acting against the authority of the House) and a punishment (loss of a job — at least Mifsud-Bonnici is still MP) takes us back to Demicoli vs. Malta having forgotten that the ECHR told us that the House cannot at once be victim, prosecutor, judge and jury at the same time.
Second, as you correctly noted, most of the motion has to do with matters which ceased to form part of Mifsud-Bonnici’s portfolio in January. I’m bemused to see that Parliament has taken on the authority to pass a damnatio memoriae (last practiced in ancient Rome and the early medieval Church, barring authoritarian governments). Anyone going to present a motion on Philip Muscat’s education policies in the late 70s?
LOL @ late 70’s education bit. (ghax ahjar tidhaq)
It is true that confidence motions are moved against the government and not individual ministers. However there are also motions of censure of a minister. In fact it appears, from press reports, that the motion against the minister was a censure motion.
Hmm, might that be the meme for the next election? Serenity vs. metrosexuality.
I think a memory refresher is needed…
“The motion was presented in December by justice and home affairs shadow ministers José Herrera and Michael Falzon. The motion was presented before Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi held a Cabinet re-shuffle and split the justice ministry from home affairs on 6 January.”
http://www.maltatoday.com.mt/en/newsdetails/news/national/No-date-set-for-debate-on-justice-and-home-affairs-motion-20120206
This clearly shows that whether you agree with the scope of the Motion or not, it is ridiculous that the motion took 6 months to be discussed. It is even more ridiculous that Franco’s motion has not been set a date. It is even more ridiculous that one appoints as Leader of the House a Minister who has two motions which are critical of his performance. It’s like, with no offence to Carm, putting an alcoholic to guard the Drinks cabinet.
Based on that alone, I guess Franco would actually be handing justice in voting against the Government on Monday. But so far he’s said he isn’t, which in my layman’s opinion means he’s keeping a threaded connection to the Government.
Which means, the Government is living on a thread and under threat. Not moving to discuss Franco’s motion may someday irk him to the extent of pulling the thread. Or will he?
Had I been an Opposition MP I’d spend all available time in Parliament just pushing him toward that.
That’s why, in my opinion, the confidence vote on Monday is a very risky move, quite comparable to that famous 1998 vote which was elevated to a confidence vote.
re: Memory refresher. If you’re going to amend the motion and change it to a confidence motion that is basically a call for resignation then the time-lapse of 6 months (and change of Minister) should be taken into consideration no? Unless of course it is personal.
On the one hand we preach the sanctity of parliament, its procedure and the principles that underlie it and on the other we twist and bend the application thereof. The whole “legal reform” business is based on wrong premises. Who can believe Franco’s calls for “improving” libel laws when his idea of censorship is to call on a the PM to silence a blogger?
Judging by the culture of resignations in this country, I’m surprised they did not make it a resignation one in the first place. Probably, they still did not have the certainty that Franco would vote against and changed it, yes political opportunism, at the last moment.
Would you think that having a parliament working on a part-time basis is right? When this country has to keep up with EU legislation, a quicker life pace, bills to be discussed (even crappy political ones like this as it proposed no real change but for the musical chair of Minister), issues to sort out, changes to laws and creation of news ones? Scrap the 65 (or 67,69,71 whatever number of MPs are there), get 35 instead and make them work a forty hour parliamentary week (including committees, discussions, keeping up communication with constituents etc), with the appropriate staff and facilities to assist them.
Maybe one should remember a comment from Nationalist MP Dr. Stephen Spiteri about parliament:
““You are making the mistake of checking who is attending, not how much time they spend there or what they are contributing,” he said after The Sunday Times revealed he missed 81 per cent of sittings since January.
“I cannot afford to climb all those stairs (the Palace staircase leading to the House of Representatives) just for two minutes to say ‘hello’ and leave. During that time I can do more important things: be it politics, my medical profession or other things.””
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20110613/local/Other-MPs-just-clock-in-and-leave-S-Spiteri.370309
Regarding Franco’s call for PM to silence a “blogger”… well, if blogging has any self respect to it, someone’s vilifications and insulting scribbles would not be considered as blogging in the first place. I’ve never heard anyone complaining on that particular “blogger”‘s scribbles based on the arguments but always on anything BUT the arguments, if any are there!
typo… first sentence “Judging by the culture of resignations in this country, I’m NOT surprised they did not make”
Interesting points. Allow me to address two them:
1. Malta’s “culture of resignations” is hardly different from that of other EU countries. It’s one of those Maltese myths that aboard a minister resigns for sneezing without covering his mouth.
2. Fair point on MP being full-timers instead of part-timers. But the number of MPs as it is, is not very far off the mark. As you note there is a considerable volume of parliamentary work which one would expect for any country let alone an EU member state. For countries wit similar populations: Luxembourg has 60 MPs, Iceland 63.
Why should anyone be surprised that a motion that’s presented by the Opposition or a government backbencher take a long time to be debated? In the House of Commons, an early day motion (limited to 250 words and usually having little of the detail or ramifications of the Herrera-Falzon and the Debono motions) is harldy every debated, turning out to be more of a “petition” signed by MPs.
Same goes for the appointment of Mifsud-Bonnici as Leader of the House. Whatever motions had been presented criticising his performance, he (or anyone else) can hardly be expected to have been acting independently of cabinet.