With arguments sandwiched in rhetoric, a few members of our free press dogmatically and patronisingly are trying to assert that the Nationalist Party can’t compel Dr Jeffrey Pullicino-Orlando to resign from Parliament. Moreover, they are suggesting that resignations in these circumstances would create a dangerous precedent in our democracy.

The winded argumentation is a futile exercise to convince the mainstream meek to accept a precarious situation unreservedly and shut up. They are attempting to justify their weak points to oppose public opinion with only one small argument that merits some validity – the legal and constitutional element. However, instead of going for the substance they are going the other way and garnishing their arguments with spin doctoring.

Even I who knows very little about laws, am aware that there exists a difference between the “letter” and the “spirit” of the law but the columnists prefer to take the path leading to the “letter of the law”, as that suits them conveniently.

To mesmerize further, they do not emphasize upon or even mention the fact that what is legal and constitutional is not always necessarily truly democratic, equitable or morally acceptable. Blasphemy, for instance, is against the law in Malta but desecrating Buddha is not. Is that equitable? Adultery was considered an offence a few years ago and now it’s not. Does the law now make adultery morally correct? One can go on ad infinitum.

A politician is elected by his constituents to represent them in Parliament for a period not longer than five years, and there are only a few rare instances when that right can be taken away from the MP – conduct unbecoming or misleading the electorate in the run up to the election are not two of these instances. Nevertheless, in democratic countries, Members of Parliament, either voluntarily or after pressure exerted by their party or Opposition, do resign when their position becomes untenable for any reason. In these sticky situations politicians normally opt for the honourable way out.

Anytime during the five-year legislative period, the Prime Minister can unilaterally advise the President to dissolve Parliament and call a general election with the excuse that it is in the public interest when we all know that the real reason is that he has his party’s best interest in mind. That prerogative is given by our Constitution and is therefore classified democratic. But doesn’t it also deprive the electorate of the mandate given to its representatives for the rest of the term?

According to one columnist, Dr Pullicino-Orlando is actually obliged to stay on in Parliament until 2013 because he owes it to the people that elected him in two constituencies and it would be a dereliction of duty to resign. This argument has holes in it because although our electoral mechanism allows members to be elected from two different districts, he/she will not be allowed to represent the two constituencies and will have to resign from one district and a by-election is held. Does this mean that the elected member has been derelict in his duties to the other lot? And what about the resignations of MPs to make way for unelected members to be co-opted into Parliament albeit from a different constituency? Have we forgotten the co-option of KMB who was later nicknamed Dr Zero?

Our system has a safeguard for most eventualities – the preferential method, which works well. When we give our first preference to candidate A we also give our second preference to candidate B. In practical terms this means that if there is a reason why the vote cannot stay on the first choice it will move on to the second or subsequent preferences until that vote is utilised effectively. This is the same system used in the by-election and therefore the people will always elect the representative of their choice.

There is no question about Dr Pullicino-Orlando’s legal right to stay on. However, if human decency dictates to him that he had acted imprudently and his seat in Parliament rendered untenable, he will have the moral obligation to resign forthwith. Failing which, his party as well as the Opposition should exert all possible pressure to make him give in. If that fails he should be divested of all of his party’s affiliations otherwise the PN will become an accessory to his alleged improper conduct which, rightly or wrongly is affecting public confidence in general.

The 1960 Profumo Affair’s political morals and British security scandal caused considerable embarrassment to the Conservative government of Harold Macmillan and led to the resignation of War Minister John Profumo in 1963. Profumo was investigated by journalists who discovered that he was having an affair with Christine Keeler who was also ‘friendly’ with a Russian diplomat. These associations had led to fears about national security leakages. The British press pursued Profumo relentlessly and he eventually admitted that Keeler was his ex-lover and resigned from Parliament.

Macmillan ordered an enquiry, which concluded that national security had not been endangered but condemned Macmillan for failing to deal with the affair, especially when it was affecting public confidence. The affair weakened the government and caused its defeat in 1964.

The unfolding episodes of the ‘Pullicino-Orlando affair’ were presented by our dramatics in a way that offered a few diversities, which resembled a three-ringed circus, to entertain the dunderheads. In Britain, where the free press is famous for its vigilance for bold investigative reporting, it left no stone unturned to unfold the scandal, pursue it and forced the man to resign. In Malta, our free press (sic) protected the alleged culprit to the hilt and aimed its total arsenal at Dr Sant, the accuser, and portrayed him as a mudslinger, hatemonger and a political opportunist. Even when tangible evidence of sleaze and other allegations were uncovered prior to the election, sections of our press kept defending the alleged culprit and demonised Sant for blowing the whistle, and we all know who that “prima ballerina” was in that controversial political cover-up.

Now that the ballot papers have been cast and the PN was regaled with 1580 more votes than Labour, the same spin doctors alias free-columnists are validating Sant’s pre-electoral allegations and accusations but still doctor a transparent spin to exonerate the PN leaders after they had rendered themselves accessories with their defence and political protection. Furthermore, some columnists continue with their gutter journalism to justify their scaremongering campaign against Sant to promote the lesser of two evils. They have now resorted to legalities to minimise the risk of having the administration toppled and in the process ignoring its moral liabilities. The dust certainly hasn’t settled yet.

All of us with eyes to see can deduce that our newly elected government has been caught in a Catch 22 situation. If they fail to succeed to exhort Pullicino-Orlando to resign and go for the next respectable option to oust him from the party, Pullicino-Orlando will become a member of the Opposition. In that scenario he will still salvage the government with his vote at division time in Parliament but he will become a potential menace and destabilise the government.

The agenda for the free press-coalition is now to prevent an impasse within the PN ranks and its attendant risks of destabilising this fragile government. It shall be very interesting to watch the finale of this contortionist act. Or perhaps the end of a prolonged prologue.