I’ve tuned into the parliamentary sessions a few times ever since the new parliament has been inaugurated. It is rarely a pleasant experience and I do not delude myself with expectations of high oratory and rhetoric. Still, the PQ sessions provide a very good picture of what our politicians are up to and the respect with which most of them hold the highest institution of our nation. It was during one particularly ugly PQ session involving a cat-and-mouse session with the PN trying to get answers from an absent Konrad Mizzi that I was once again pleasantly surprised with an intervention by Marlene Farrugia, Labour MP.
Following a particularly cringe-causing exchange where it was evident that the Labour MPs were all out to avoid answering any form of questions no matter how they were phrased, Farrugia stood up and started to speak. The way her intervention began led me to believe it would be more of the same partisan pot and kettle talk. “I’ve sat through previous legislatures watching the previous Ministers and MPs dodging answers to questions and failing to be accountable”, she began. Was Marlene about to justify the government MP’s attitude with a classic ‘Tu quoque’ intervention?
Not really. “I’d expected our newly elected government with its promise of transparency and accountability to be different” she continued. Now there was a politician worth her salt. Marlene was not defending the Labour MP’s economy with the truth – she was criticising them, and precisely because they were doing nothing to improve the situation inherited from the previous lot even though they had been elected to do just that.
To me that intervention embodies all that Marlene Farrugia represents. She is a living proof of the politicians of real change. Oftentimes she is wrongly placed in the same category as the Franco Debono’s and Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando’s of this world – renegade, unhappy backbenchers who are trying to get more from their party while it is in power. Party faithfuls do not miss a beat when insulting and remind “why she was elected”. Yet Farrugia does not seem to aspire to power as much as to a kind of politics that is rare – real accountability, real transparency and a real change from the past.
Part of the charm of the Taghna Lkoll message for many during last election was the promise to break away from the old way of doing politics. This meant doing away with deals brokered with friends and friends of friends, it meant an open, transparent and meritocratic system. Had JosephPL stuck to the Taghna Lkoll promises it would not be in the dire situation it is now – a situation that might not be reflected in the opinion polls yet but that is evidently paving the way for electoral disaster.
Farrugia’s constant questioning of Labour’s performance is not based on a renegade development suddenly sprung on the party leadership. Rather she is the stronger version of the conscience that should remind the leadership, the party and the government of its democratic commitments to society. Is all this done out of some Macchiavellian manoeuvering? Does Farrugia hope to unseat the current leadership? Is her aim to destabilise the Labour party’s majority? As things stand it is very doubtful whether any of these options are possible or whether they are actually a priority in the outspoken MP’s mind. What is clear is that by sticking to values and committing to the most basic of electoral charters of accountability that is the party’s own manifesto and promises Farrugia towers strongly over the rest of the Labour MPs.
Until now Muscat has been able to ‘tolerate’ Farrugia’s outspokenness, also because he can scarcely do otherwise. If, as we hope, Farrugia remains steadfastly consistent in her commitment to a code of values that seems to have been ditched by the labour mainstream upon election the situation might become more and more uncomfortable. The main reason is that there is a limit to the number of gaffes that can be committed without the accountability.
Muscat’s nine lives might still be in full swing but Marlene Farrugia remains a wonderful reminder of what Taghna Lkoll would have been and could have been had it not been hijacked by power hungry opportunists who fail to understand or respect the liberal democratic system of accountability. Hers remains a tough task of civic education – particularly when it comes to imparting the lesson that having a majority does not automatically make everything right.
also read this: ‘This is not the Labour government we strived for’ – Marlene Farrugia urges ‘change in direction’
