How little we know about those we elect (or otherwise) to lead us, I thought the other day as I registered the level of surprise and even astonishment at the information that Marie Louise Coleiro Preca has only been married for six years, that her 20year-old-daughter is not her husband’s and that she had a relationship with a married man with three children, from which relationship the child was born.

This, incidentally, is a matter of public record: there was a notice published in the Government Gazette a few years ago in respect of litigation between the two about child maintenance payments. You can get no more official a record than the Government Gazette.

That this information was not widely known set me to thinking about how unquestioning we are when we choose our representatives, about our politicians in general. We don’t even bother examining them, who they are, where they come from, what their home set up, what their history is. We just take them at face value, as single individuals, without bothering about the rest of their life. Many people don’t even know whether the politicians they vote for (let alone those they don’t vote for) are married, gay, separated, with children, married for the second time, divorced, whatever. Is it important that we should know? Well, yes, I think so. We are all the sum total of the many parts of our lives, and nothing we do is in isolation.

There are still people around who have not yet worked out – for instance – that Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando was married for quite a while to Labour MP Marlene Farrugia, and that they have three children together, who live with him. They don’t know that Godfrey Farrugia also has a wife and a few children, that both left their spouses for each other, and that they are not married to each other, but only by coincidence share a surname (Marlene was born Farrugia and reverted to that surname when she divorced Pullicino Orlando).

I really do not blame people for raising an eyebrow at all these complications, losing track and sometimes even losing interest. It is all too much, heightened by the sense of smallness of living in Malta, with so many people tangled up in each other’s hair. But here is exactly a case in point as to why it is important for the public to know the facts, if not the details, of the family/relationship circumstances of politicians. Framed in the context of full knowledge of the facts, Godfrey Farrugia’s appalling treatment at the hands of the prime minister, who has been accommodating to Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando on many issues, becomes easier to understand. You can see, in light of this, that poor Godfrey Farrugia never stood much of a chance at all, even if he were good at his health minister’s job, which he appears not to have been. What unfolded was, in effect, the prolonged public torture and humiliation of Pullicino Orlando’s marital nemesis. My assessment may be right or it may be wrong, but it is certainly worth considering and it is a sound illustration of how a politician’s so-called private life can have a direct bearing and influence on his/her life in politics.

As for Marie Louise Coleiro Preca, now the head of state, some have said that ‘past mistakes should be forgiven and forgotten’. But that is hardly the point. As somebody commented to me a few days ago, this is, fundamentally, about the rewarding of poor behaviour. I had been trying to quantify what angered me so much about her appointment, other than the fact that she is not really fit for purpose, and it is, indeed, exactly that. It is the sight of bad behaviour rewarded, and the sense of frustration at the sheer injustice of it. That is exactly what is offensive. The former Miss Coleiro has much to be ashamed of in her political track record as secretarygeneral of the Malta Labour Party during its darkest years, and equally, it is really offputting to see somebody who behaved so badly in her personal life installed in the highest office in the land.

This is not a hereditary monarchy. The British have no control over whether their disgracefully-behaved Prince of Wales becomes head of state. Malta chooses its head of state and so it must make sure that its choices are those of exemplary people in all possible ways. By the same token, choosing somebody with a track record of questionable behaviour is a statement too: bad behaviour will be rewarded regardless, so behave as badly as you please.