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therealopposition.com

Here’s another one for the New Republic Dictionary – where’s the real opposition? Andrew Borg Cardona beat me to this reflection yesterday in his Times blog (Snappy Little Annoyances). This is no race though and ABC’s pondering only comforted my thinking in the sense that if other people are reaching the same conclusions then the concept might be worth a moment of elaboration and analysis. In this case the idea (or question provoking the idea) is simple: Who is performing the work of the real opposition in Malta nowadays? Surely, I hear you protest,  it’s Joseph Muscat and his merry band of “għaqlin”. Well no it isn’t.

If we needed any confirmation of the absolute abdication by the Malta Labour Party from its duties as a real opposition then the run up to the budget and subsequent follow up have given us enough to digest. There they were arming their cannons with the fodder of overused cliches about the cost-of-living and the water and electricity bills. The likes of Luciano Busuttil, Cyrus Engerer and Leo Brincat crammed social networks with “warnings” that the government benches’ vocabulary would be rife with references to the international state of economic affairs – like that would be a bad thing. The “opposition” wanted you to believe that a government presenting its budget in November 2011 was obliged to do so without thinking about what was going on in France, Spain, Greece and Italy. Basically according to Labour, our Budget in Times of Crisis had to ignore the Eurozone in its entirety.

Did “we the people” fall for it? Well the “sarcastic” elements of the web might have found something to chew on – coming up with Eurovision-like games about the number of times Tonio F would mention the PIGS (that’s Portugal, Italy, Greece, Spain and not the porcine patterers) but on the whole the reaction to what on the surface seems to be a very family oriented and equity-driven budget (“equity” that’s a word to hang on to nowadays) seems to be relatively positive and unaffected by Labour’s shenanigans. There is hope yet.

We cannot be distracted though by the sanity of the PN budget planning. Two years before a general election it behooves us to drill the fact that Joseph Muscat’s Labour has not only been caught with its pants down but (if you forgive the extensive milking of the metaphor) it is very evidently lacking any signs of puberty – let alone full blown maturity. We couldn’t put it simpler – the Labour opposition is transparently unable to come to terms with the simplest of facts: a budget is not only where to spend your money but also about where it will be coming from.

Muscat is headstrong about the downsizing of water and electricity bills (while expecting Tonio Fenech to both announce a hike AND a cut in the utility bills) but cannot be brought to explain to anyone who cares to listen where the hell the money to cover those cuts will be coming from. Broad statements and planning coming from the opposition involve spending more and cutting less or some half-baked plans about alternative forms of energy. This while Sarkozy’s government (shit, he mentioned France) is hell-bent on AUSTERITY, SuperMario (darn.,there goes Italy) has been installed to supervise a cost-cutting and tax-hiking exercise to tackle the spread, and Greece (no, don’t mention the Greeks) is battling for survival with the latest technical government.

Even in a time of crisis where in other countries (sorry but they exist) opposition members co-operate with governments in order to perform the tightrope act of equitable measures that might just about keep the euro bomb from exploding, Muscat wants to play at the traditional, old fashioned opposition selling unsustainable populist wares to what he hopes is a sufficiently gullible and greedy electorate.

Which brings me back to the question. Who is the real opposition? Well the likes of Franco Debono embody the kind of unlovable opposition (from a government point of view) that we really deserve. Even with a crisis looming backbenchers found time to rap the government hand on such issues as responsibility in transport reform, divorce legislation, and now criminal justice reform. They did not hesitate to throw themselves four-square behind the government when it came to the all-important measures related to economic stability. better still we got an added bonus because the government could plan confidently and include incentives that remind us of the true worth of christian-democrat politics when practised properly.

The New Republic has the potential to banish futile, old-fashioned oppositions from their undeserved seats and benches in parliament. Joseph Muscat’s failure to breathe fresh air into an old and tired Labour might find that the final test will be an unfortunate one for his fate and of those who would love to preserve the old fashioned way of the all-nixing opposition. Far from being progressive, Muscat and his minions have proved to be a clunking metal ball at the foot of real progress in constitutional, institutional and republican matters. The sooner the Republic is rid of this baggage the faster everyone gets to move on.

 

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We the People

Speaking to the papers earlier this week Franco Debono was protesting that his was not the voice of a rebel politician but that of the electorate. The nationalist MP had just lived through another period of being labelled a renegade by his side and a near miss by the members of parliament across the chamber and was once again attempting to explain what his motivations.

Is Franco Debono an anomaly or yet another clear sign of the newly-formed rules of the game in the New Republic? His criticism of Minister Austin Gatt’s transport reform was couched in constitutional terms of “accountability”, “collective and individual ministerial responsibility”, “control on spending” and other such  terms that are the staple food of the democratic system of checks and balances. Beyond Debono lay an opposition baying for much more than constitutional principles and ministerial blood. There lay an opposition still firmly entrenched in old ways hoping that this “crisis” would be the last for “GonziPN”. They refused to understand Debono’s line of thinking… to them there was one way out – the collapse of government and early elections.

[box type=”info”] That (…) Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. – US Declaration of Independence[/box]

The math behind electoral laws is such that ensures that the government of the day is one that enjoys the confidence of the majority of the people. It’s basic democratic spiel. Franco Debono’s noise about being the electorate implies that somehow the circle of trust between the electorate and the party in government had somehow lost its focus. His, the MP claims, was not a battle to destroy the legitimate government but to remind it of its duty towards the electorate. In many ways Franco Debono is right. Far from the noise of the spin gurus and the spam, the message that Debono sent shockingly to the PN core is a clear Caveat. His idea of a modern politician is of one who puts his constitutional duty of representation above that of loyalty to his party. Franco Debono turned into the one man guardian of “We the people”.

How far does Franco’s concept of “electorate” depart from our previous ideas of the workings of democracy? Not much. It’s rather the manner in which the electorate is bandied around that is becoming quite novel, and not just in Malta. At the end of the day the MP’s seat and the cabinet chair is theoretically filled by those entrusted by “We the people” to run and manage the affairs of the state in the interests of the common good. Just a tiny strait of sea away we have just witnessed a change in government from a political one (elected by “We the people”) to a technocrat one (SuperMario’s nanny government entrusted with nursing Italy’s economy into EU standard good health).

What happened in Italy is a clear sign of the result of new pressures. Merkel, Sarkozy and international pressure obliged Berlusconi to bow out. Silvio did not even lose a vote of confidence in parliament. If you believe Silvio, he stood aside for the good of the people. What happens in these circumstances – will the good of the people trump the normal rules that have their chosen representatives in their rightful seats? For how long?

Economically hard times might prove to be a godsend for parties selling cheap solutions and promising the earth. The new republics will need a wiser citizen when choosing his representatives. Half-baked solutions and empty promises are a ticking bomb that risk breaking becoming the straw that breaks the camels back. How long will technocratic governments be on standby to wrong the rights of elected officials?

We the people still have an important role to play in our liberal democracies. We the people must learn to chose wisely and for the greater good.

The New Republic can only be based on intelligent voters.

[box type=”info”] PREDICTION 25 – In the future, the value of your vote will become less than zero. That happens when the amount you pay in taxes to have your own vote counted is less than the value that you get from the vote itself. (The Dilbert Future – Scott Adams)[/box]

 

 

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The New Republic

Today, Monday 14th November 2011, J’accuse : The New Republic is born . We’re officially dropping the “la verité si je mens” (the truth if I lie) slogan and kicking off the new season by declaring the Age of the New Republic open*.

This is the age of crisis after crisis, the era of the 99% vs the 1%. It  is the age of the bouncing of the cheques issued by the marketing-inspired politics of taste and of the de-crystallization of the post-1989 ideologies.

This is the age of the redefinition of populist calls and the age of the clueless enfranchised cohabiting with the hapless disenfranchised.It is the age of the whiplash effects of consumerism, of the final, desperate calls for environmental propriety and of the unmasking of the financial string-pullers and profiteers. It is the age of relativist unhappiness, of consumer anxiety and of moral vacuum after moral vacuum.

Natural disasters, check. Financial turmoil, check. Spread of debt, check. Missing political compass, check. Dearth of leaders, check. It’s all set.

This is the age of crisis. We live in interesting times. However, there is a sense of inevitability in the idea that from this chaos, from this crisis and moment of questioning will arise a new age. We might be questioning the very functionality of our society’s basic functions and organisation. There might be an institutional crisis further aggravated by a political crisis and a lack of faith in those who have claimed to lead until now. There may be more questions and answers at this point in time and a sense of doom and darkness that might lead us to lose all sense of proportion.

Yes, there may be all that and more but there is also the inevitable idea that the chaotic waters following this intellectual, social and economic big bang will be pregnant with new ideas and provide us with a newly born order. The seeds of the New Republic(s) are being sown today.

As a first step, J’accuse will be proposing a series of posts under the new rubrique (NRD – New Republic Dictionary) in which we will be looking at salient concepts and issues that are at the forefront of national and international news at the dawning of this new age. The Dictionary for a New Republic starts here.

P.S. It’s nice to be back – and thank you for all your good wishes.

 

*You might have noticed the new addition to the J’accuse logo.