Joseph Muscat’s positively progressive band of meritocratic men announce the scrapping of Local Council Elections as a cost cutting exercise and practically nobody other than the opposition bats an eyelid. Ah but the opposition is negative isn’t it? And we need to save money because this administration has turned the very business of government into an expensive enterprise by exploding the emoluments bill for the meritocratically selected mandarins that have been absorbed within its ranks (and thus artificially adjusting unemployment figures).
Muscat speaks so proudly of legislative reform and second republic and emancipation of younger voters but then takes a right royal crap on democratic representation. We should be used by now to his Carollian interpretation of all the mechanics of democratic representation and how the constitution really works. So long as the newspeak keeps the sheep happy.
Not so in the fourth most populous democracy in the world. An Islamic democracy to boot – with all the perceived connotations of a feeble grasp of how representation really work:
The Indonesian parliament voted to scrap direct elections for regional office-bearers early Friday — a decision that critics say is a step backward for democracy in the world’s fourth most populous nation and biggest Muslim-majority country.When Indonesians woke up to the news, many reacted with anger and fury. “A Democratic Betrayal,” read the Jakarta Globe headline on Friday. (TIME)
Indonesia must be replete with “negative thinkers” who are ready to pounce on and criticise a progressive and positive government. I am sure Muscat would have a word or two for the people gathering out of the Indonesian parliament: to protest the scrapping of local elections.
Wake up and smell the coffee indeed. Rather than hanging onto tired clichès about Simon Busuttil’s negativity, the electorate would do well to listen to the dangerous warning signals that he highlighted during the Independence Day speech. The erosion of a culture of democracy and democratic representation begins when the electorate is prepared to allow people like Muscat’s band to take them for a ride.
Scrapping local elections should never be on the cards. No excuse is good enough – particularly the ridiculous cost-cutting exercise that Muscat seems to be clinging to as a lame excuse.
