The Banana Republic Files. In today’s Times we find the report that “At the start of yesterday evening’s sitting of Parliament, the Speaker gave a written answer to a question by Nationalist MP Franco Debono on progress in talks on the financing of political parties, which he considered urgent.”
Well, thanks to Labour’s recent walk out and tantrum this is the current situation: “The House Select Committee on the Strengthening of Democracy had advanced its discussions on the topic. A period of public consultation on the electoral process and system had expired on December 18, 2009. The Speaker expressed the hope that the current situation, wherein the select committee was not meeting, would be temporary and the committee would soon be able to continue its work.”
Notwithstanding all the Speaker’s high hopes the bottom line is: democracy is on hold.
Earlier this week the Green Party filed a judicial protest over the electoral law. The legal challenge to article 52 of the Constitution was filed in Court as another direct result of the Labour abandoning of the process for “Strengthening of Democracy”.
No way forward for rules on party funding. No way forward on electoral reform. The future is dull. The future is a Banana Republic.
