Category: Politics

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Mediawatch Politics

Cultivating Ignorance

If Malta wasn’t sufficiently steeped in partisan ignorance, Inhobbkom Joseph would have to invent it. His latest intervention in the light of Chris Said’s resignation does not just defy logic but it creates a whole new universe of abject insensitivity, crass opportunism and is the political equivalent of the cheap whore that nobody would pay to sleep with. Inhobbkom Joseph may (and I say may out of whatever modicum of respect is left) have the excuse of having no inkling of the law and how it works since his studies took him far far away from the logical and the rational and into the world of lies and statistics. Having said that however he is surrounded by a bunch of people who might (again might) claim to have an idea about the workings of the law them having been proferred with the dikri (and probably their sporting such dikri on a plakka outside their offices).

Inhobbkom is appalled because Gonzi’s letter accepting Said’s resignation implies a readiness to reappoint Said as PS once this is over.  Inhobbkom “jinstab imhasseb” (is worried) that the letter does not leave the judiciary the necessary comfort zone of independence and burdens them with undue pressure. What should worry the electors is that here is a man who will soon be in a decision making position and is able to shoot such weighted bullshit out of his pen in order to gain political mileage. There is no other explanation. The facts of the alleged perjury are known to everyone and his brother (except… it seems… the Maltastar crowd who are intent on depicting Said as a criminal). Mr Leader of the Opposition (should I say Dr?) seems to be very willing to ignore these facts and prefers to murk the waters even more.

Who knows though? This might not be a mistaken attempt by inhobbkom but a concerted effort to sabotage the government’s workings. Given the weak stand of the perjury allegation and coupling that with the fact that Labour MP Justyne Caruana is the “politician/lawyer” handling the allegation on behalf of the supposed victim we would all be forgiven for being convinced that this is yet another Labour attempt to engage in the wrong form of politics. Inhobbkom might inflict damage to Chris Said’s reputation among his detractors but I am firmly convinced that Said will bounce back stronger than before.

Maltastar’s purposive selectivity is not the first we saw this week. The Times of Malta was equally damned when reporting the developments in the Nikki Dimech case. Given that it was reporting different witness statements it was somewhat worying that it chose to highlight the statement of the former contracts manager (the alleged perpetrator or victim of the bribe depending on who you believe) and failed to point out the alleged improper behaviour of a Member of Parliament. It was alleged that Robert Arrigo insisted on the contracts manager being compensated and also that the same Arrigo entered the council and shouted (intimidated) at one of the members. FUnny how the Times developed amnesia about these particular allegations which have as much weight as the allegations that it eventually chose to place in the headline.

Categories
Hunting Politics

Living in Denial

The FKNK is busy ‘pouring scorn‘ on what they describe as an ‘alleged discovery’ of 70 (seventy) dead birds by CABS in the Mizieb valley. The war of attrition between FKNK/hunting community and the CABS/Birdlife coalition goes on. We’ve had another physical assault on CABS personnel who were inspecting an area for dead birds. Later in court, FKNK committee member Briffa claimed to have hit the CABS representative by mistake while trying to take his camera. While the lawyers and the law will work on the fine details of illegal arrest (tut tut) it is rather obvious that “trying to take his camera” does not sound like the most collaborative of methods by someone who should have no worries about searches for dead birds – especially since any discovery could only be ‘alleged’ or ‘fictional’. Comparisons may be odious but the trend in logical acrobatics and obstinate ignorance is common to the pro arguments of both hunting and firework factory lobbyists.

A friend of mine who recently temporarily relocated from Luxembourg to Malta after six years in the Duchy spent Independence Day at Buskett. He told me a story that sounded like a fable. For the first time in his life he saw many birds of different varieties (apparently Kuccard were spotted – and other unnameable ones for alas he is no birdspotter – at least not the avian kind). He also told me of the many hunters who gathered around in admiration of the flying spectacle. We both wondered whether the following thoughts went through their mind: “Ara jahasra, issa li ma nistghux nikkaccjaw ara kemm hawn ghasafar. Qabel qajla kienu  jigu. X’sahta!” (It’s such a pity that now that we cannot hunt so many birds are coming. Before we rarely saw so many. What bad luck!”)

Do you really think  that that scenario is hypothetical?

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Local Councils Politics

All that Fuss in Sliema

Today’s breaking news is that Robert Webb lookalike Cyrus Engerer does not enjoy the confidence of the majority of Sliema councillors in his bid to be the new Deputy Mayor. The PN doo-doo is really piling high in that fortress of nationalist behaviour and there seems no end to the woes – disciplinary and others – facing the General Secretariat. Only last week Lawrence Gonzi paraded a new set of standards for PN elected local councillors and now there is a mini-revolt against central diktat.

For the no confidence motion in Engerer is also backed by a PN councillor – Mr Edward Cuschieri. Cuschieri has the backing of sufficient members to propose himself as the new Deputy Mayor. Spinmeisters will once again dismiss the goings on in Sliema as an insignificant fuss … but surely once the big machinery was set in motion to ensure tat the right hierarchy was in place this constitutes another setback to the PN?

That Robert Webb Look

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Categories
Fireworks Politics

Do You Feel Lucky?

Writing in yesterday’s Sunday Times, Inhobbkom Joseph told anybody who cared to listen that he was “deeply saddened” after the nation “experienced another frustrating and an-gering fireworks tragedy”. He went on to tell us that we have waited too long for legislation on fireworks and that he too lives in dread of the next explosion. It might not all boil down to Joseph’s dad being an owner of a chemical importing business (of the kind used to make fireworks) but Joseph’s Times appeal smacks of opportunism of the highest PLPN degree. While Lawrence was on radio pointing fingers at some sort of PL protectionism for the failure to regulate party funding (and PL answered with their own dose of just as predictable finger pointing) Joseph had a little problem.

He had to look like he was in favour of taking action against the irrational way in which the whole firework industry is managed and run. We are used to Inhobbkom’s reactions now – the moment public feeling is on a high about something, Joseph is quick to leap onto the bandwagon and tell us how he feels and empathises with the people’s situation. He then promises some form of knee-jerk legislation that might (only might) solve the problem. In this case though there are too many ties that bind him to the situation. The ugliest tie of them all, and the most difficult one to shake off will undoubtedly remain his dad’s business. There’s no two ways of going about it. Now J’accuse was among the first to insist that Joseph should NOT be held responsible for his father’s deeds and actions. In saying that we do not even intend to imply in any way that Muscat Senior is responsible in any way for what has been happening.

We are bound however, to take the role of the Senior into consideration when Junior tries to create a Private Lives of Saints moment with his parable of the old man who lost his palm saving a kid. After a lot of faff about the history of firrework legislation (probably written for Joseph not by Joseph), the Times article ends in a little parable:

I was inspired to write this article by a man who years ago at a village feast saw a young boy he barely knew parading an unignited petard which he was banging against a wall. The man lunged towards him, yelling at the boy to stop what he was doing because the firework may go off. He managed to seize the petard. As soon as he did so, it ignited. The boy was unhurt. The man lost part of his right palm.

Had the man failed to act, the young boy would have lost his arm, his eyes, possibly his life.

During his long term in hospital, the man, a humble salesman who earned a living from writing and carrying boxes, learnt to write with his left hand and how to handle things with his disabled body part. Years of practice led him to re-learn writing with his right hand.

He never complained, always feeling it was his duty to save the young boy, whom he did not know, and he would undoubtedly do the same again. That man was my father.

You might be moved to empathise with the father – and indirectly with the loving son who is being “martyred” by the spin in cerrtain quarters. We are not. To us this parable is equivalent to the story of the weapons dealer who walks in on a kid playing with a pistol and ends up getting shot while wrestling the pistol from the kids’ hand. We could come up with many more distressing stories of the kind but the end game is really not that difficult to perceive. Even in Joseph’s parable the danger is not represented by the child but by the petard. The petard is a dangerous product whether or not it is manufactured under the right conditions. The point at issue in Malta right now is whether the country can afford protracting its lackadaisical approach to the whole matter.

That Joseph has such close ties to the firework industry is unfortunate. That he tries to turn this tie into some story of a martyr and a saint instead of coming clean about his ties is even worse. The same goes for each and every MP and politician who is into the clans of firework enthusiasts and festa committees up to his neck. MaltaToday have published a list of these MPs (well done sleuths – still waiting for newspaper version though). That these clans of enthusiasts might operate with the illegal secrecy of weapons dealers might not have been any clearer had not the Malta Independent on Sunday broken the news that there actually were witnesses of the Gharb explosion but they are refusing to speak.

We have Joseph coming up with biblical parables worthy of George Preca, we have a body of MPs torn between the votes of the faithful and reasonable action and we have an industry worth millions of euros and thousands of votes that seems to be reistant to all forms of intervention.

In wondering whether we need new regulation politicians just need to ask themselves one question:

“Do I feel lucky?… Well do you, punk?”

Categories
Arts Politics

50 minutes with Žižek

We’re hooked (thanks David). This guy is interesting if not anything else. While we are busy booking his tomes from play.com we will continue our vlogging trend with a 50 minute clip with Slavoj Zizek from a Dutch programme called backlight. Find a 50 minute break (lunch?) sit back, listen and react.

Categories
Local Councils Politics

Impeachment Day (Part I)

The vote of no confidence in Sliema Mayor Nikki Dimech will be taken today. The Times reports that all six remaining Sliema Councillors need to show up in order to ensure that Joanna Gonzi replaces Nikki Dimech as Mayor of the council. The four Labour councillors are expected to abstain on the vote as directed from HQ while Dimech and Camilleri – the two ex PN councillors who resigned from the party are expected to vote against.

Article 29 of Chapter 363 (Local Councils Act)
29. (1) The Mayor or Deputy Mayor shall cease to hold their
office upon a vote of no confidence delivered by a majority of the
Councillors in office.

(2) The motion proposing a vote of no confidence in the Mayor
or Deputy Mayor shall be signed by at least one third of the
Councillors in office and shall specify the reason for such motion
and propose another Councillor to be elected as Mayor or Deputy
Mayor as the case may be.

J’accuse chooses “impeachment day” to ask a few questions of the current system. DimechGate (and the ancillary cases involving PL and PN councillors in different localities) have brought to light a few shortcomings of the dealings of political parties at local council level. J’accuse does not intend to advocate against the participation of parties in local politics but rather would like to question what the added value actually is and whether the parties are really providing a service to the various communities by bringing their partisan terms to the local table.

Condizionamento Arbitrale

In dealing with the issue we take a step away from the allegations regarding the police questioning of the current Sliema Mayor in the hope that any doubts raised and alarm bells rung are replied and seen to in the appropriate judicial forum. This is not about an extended conspiracy theory involving some hidden arm of the law directed from some party HQ. We do feel the need to say, however, that police intervention in certain matters might suffer from what in football (at least when it was trendy to bandy conspiracy theories) is referred to as “condizionamento psicologico arbitrale” – and that this does not only apply to PN intervention (vide PBO) but also to sudden trysts of fancy by the PL (vide Anglu Farrugia’s crusade on purchased votes).  This condizionamento arbitrale is a symptom but not a cause of the current ails.

Partiti Politici

The role of political parties in local councils was hotly debated from the start. The PN had no qualms in spreading its political participation at local council level. Labour on the other hand took a step back from the first elections and only entered the fray at alater stage. The very notion of a “political party” in the law applicable to Local Councils is interesting. Under Cap 363 – the Local Councils Act – a “political party ” is defined as follows:

“political party” means, except as otherwise provided for in this Act, any person or group of persons contesting the elections of a Local Council as one group bearing the same name (Article 2 – Interpretation)

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Unless you take into account the Kafkesque detail of the Third Schedule to the Act (entitled Local Councils (Elections) Regulations, 1993) in which the electoral fetish of us Maltese is reflected in full blasts with such minutiae as the behaviour of Directors of Retirement Homes during election time being regulated and above all – access to every step of the process – from printing to counting – for party agents being guranteedd… unless you register that, parties have little or no mention in the actual political running of councils under the letter of the law.

The most important provision in which parties make a fleeting (but very relevant) appearance is Article 25 dealing with the election of the Mayor:

25 (1) Without prejudice to the provisions of article 29, the office of Mayor in any Local Council shall be occupied by such elected Councillor who at the last local election shall have obtained the highest number of votes in the first count amongst the candidates of the political party which at such elections obtained the absolute majority of Councillors in such Council. Such Councillor shall assume the office of Mayor at the first sitting of the Council after such local election. If for any reason such Councillor refuses to occupy the office of Mayor, the Councillor with the second highest number of votes from the aforesaid political party shall assume office, and so on, until the office of Mayor is filled:

Provided that if the Mayor vacates office during the Council’s term, the office of Mayor shall be occupied by such person belonging to the same political party who had obtained the highest number of votes in the first count after the Mayor who is vacating office:

Provided further that where the law does not provide otherwise, the Mayor shall be chosen from amongst the Councillors.

Peachy innit? Bear in mind that party refers to not just PN, PL or AD but also to any other group of individuals contesting under one name: e.g. Società Filarmonika Hal-Bomba. In a hypothetical vote even if a member of a newly council of five got over half of the first count votes to get elected but the rest of the votes were share equally between another four candidates of one “party” then the new Mayor would not be the independent person who garnered most votes but rather the candidate who has most votes among those elected on the party list.

Strangely, this system does away with the simple vote among councillors to see who among them enjoys the support of the majority of councillors (whatever the colour or creed) as is done (hypothetically) for the selection of Prime Minister in parliament. So essentially a party will vie for an absolute majority of councillors in an election after which it is guaranteed that there will be no “freak vote” whereby its councillors “defect” and vote for a popular “independent” – and boo to self-determination.

The role of parties in the 80 articles of the Local Councils Act starts and stops with the determination of the Mayor. The rest of the Act (particularly the aforementioned Schedule 3) is more concerned with the hobby of thousands that is the electoral process, electoral agents, perspexes and ballot papers. So the law is not exactly illuminating with regards to the interaction between a political party and its elected members within the council.

A che prò?

So why does a councillor like Robert Musumeci “take exception” to calls for parties to get their hands out of Local Councils? What’s the big deal? How is a relative party heavyweight like Secretary General Paul Borg Olivier drawn to risking his and his party’s reputation by attempting to oblige at least one councillor to use her vote against her will in order to obtain the necessary number of votes to get an impeachment of a Mayor going?

The answers are not so easy and we need to step back in order to get a clearer picture. As I said earlier my concern is to discover how parties could be beneficial to a local council and whether they are actually inputting such benefits. The impression right now is simply that while the PLPN are eager to have a finger in every council pie they are only really heard of when distancing themselves from those who fail to perform well. Furthermore there is a distinct impression that there is no nation-wide policy that applies to local councils in similar circumstances.

Faustian reasoning may play the fool with regard to Karol Aquilina and requisitioned houses elsewhere in Malta but Karol’s position on the Siggiewi house sounds very much like a policy that could, and should, be applied elsewhere by members of the same party in the interests of the community. That this does not happen cannot be taken as proof that Aquilina’s move was opportunistic (true) but it definitely paints a picture of a haphazard one-off application that cannot in any way be attributed or equated to the home party unless similar actions are really triggered off elsewhere.

That there is no evidence of a coordinating body within the parties that is used to trigger off local-friendly programmes across different councils is a clear sign of the misuse of the party ticket. For what worth is it to aim to garner as many majorities as possible in the councils of Camillo and Peppone when there is no programme to follow through? The dangers of such wide nets simply for the number are being evidenced now as both PN and PL find themselves burdened with scandals they never bargained for. That such scandals can and will happen is normal – when a sequence of scandals related to mismanagement and mishandling of public resources occurs then we begin to question the preparation of such candidates. Worse still we question whether the culture of curried favours and political obligations is now too well dug in into our council system.

So the first question we pose in this first part is this:

1) If we accept the role of political parties (and not just PLPNAD) in Local Councils how should or could this role be defined? Is this a question for legislators to address (aihmè the PLPN legislators) or is it something that should come from within the parties?

We’ll be back with more.