From Dr Michael Frendo

Anthony Camilleri’s letter about Malta’s candidacy for the post of Secretary General of the Commonwealth is a pathetic attempt to throw a negative light on what has been a very positive exercise for our country and is characterised by half-baked ideas, flimsy analysis and a fossilised colonialist view of the Commonwealth.

I would like to think that his emotional reaction arises from thinking, as reported by this newspaper, that the Indian candidate Mr Sharma was elected unanimously and that no one supported the Maltese candidate! In that case, he was very ill-advised as this wrong understanding is very far from the truth: the procedure for the election of Secretary General (SG) of the Commonwealth involves a straw poll in the form of a secret vote on ballot papers following which the candidate who does not achieve the majority vote withdraws from the race and the remaining candidate is elected “unanimously”.

Mr Camilleri is again dramatically wrong when he seems to think that Malta could not get support from the Caribbean countries, for example, because of relations with the EU, in particular on the current EPA negotiations. The basis of strong support from the Caribbean was exactly the opposite of his reasoning: the fact that Malta straddles both the EU reality and the reality of a small island State was attractive to many countries because they felt that a Commonwealth SG coming from such an experience would be able to address their concerns in the right fora.

His view with regard to the Pakistan issue, which, according to him, I “spearheaded” within the Commonwealth, is, at best, ludicrous. I was elected Chair of CMAG, the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group that safeguards Commonwealth democratic principles, two years ago. Pakistan has been on the CMAG agenda throughout that period. As Chair, I carried out my responsibility to seek a full consensus of all the countries represented on CMAG on the way forward on Pakistan, which is coherent and consistent. For doing that successfully in difficult circumstances, I, and Malta, got a public expression of thanks by the current Secretary-General of the Commonwealth Don McKinnon and by the Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper speaking in the concluding session of CHOGM on behalf of his country, Britain and Cyprus. Thankfully, those in the know, clearly not Mr Camilleri, were appreciative of the way I chaired the difficult meetings, which led to difficult but correct decisions. It is well known, contrary to Mr Camilleri’s “analysis”, that the African member States were also watching closely how the Commonwealth would address Pakistan bearing in mind the issue with Zimbabwe. Once more he got it wrong.

How close our candidature was to success can be seen by the comments of Sir David Frost in his interview with the undersigned on Friday afternoon. The vote was taken on Saturday morning.

Unfortunately, Mr Camilleri represents the old view of little Malta keeping its place and not taking on others on the international scene. He should realise that Malta has grown up. It is time to address the future with self-confidence.

Michael Frendo

Minister of Foreign Affairs