Today, the history of the Republic is being portrayed as a glorious event and those who opposed or voted against it are politically describedas traitors. However, very few know that the Republican Constitution replaced another constitution, which was approved by a popular referendum. The new Constitution was not subjected to the popular vote. This was the major bone of contention between the Nationalists in Opposition and the Labour Party in Government. The Prime Minister of the time, Dom Mintoff, did not want to subject his new constitution to popular scrutiny. Finally, this is what a referendum is all about. Instead, he wanted to have it approved by a vote in parliament.
Personally, I have my doubts that our Republic constitution was inspired by European values. It certainly was not built on Plato’s thoughts as expressed in his book The Republic or the rediscovered Greek and forgotten Christian ideals of the “Respubblica Cristiana” by the French revolutionaries. In reality, our Republic was inspired by Muhammar Gaddafi’s political model. Or rather, the 1964 constitution was emended to be nearer to the one adopted in Libya in 1969.Following Gaddafi’s coup d’êtat in Libya in 1969, the Libyan Revolutionary Command Council (RCC) was set up. It was headed by Gaddafi himself. The old Libyan Constitution was abolished and a new Libyan African Republic was proclaimed with the motto of “freedom, socialism and unity”. According to Gaddafi’s reasoning, the republican principles were not averse to Islam but on the contrary, of Islamic inspiration. Therefore, moving Malta towards a Republic appeared as a natural manoeuvre to bring our island closer to Libya. Gaddafi saw the new constitution as a political move by Malta to adopt the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya model. For Gaddafi, Mintoff had reworked and built our new constitution on the Libyan Republican model. In fact, Gaddafi praised Malta’s move for having become a Republic and he was one of the first to be honoured with a Ġieħir-Repubblika in 1975.
The proof of my argument is to be found in the raison d’être for the making of our Republic. Like Gaddafi’s, our Republic was said to have been built on Socialist principles. The previous constitution of 1964 had indirect references to work and work ethics. However, it would have been too bold a statement for Mintoff to declare in the 1974 constitution that Malta was like Libya a Socialist Republic. This was only done orally. The political discourse at the time was about Socialist Malta or Malta Soċjalista. Instead, he mellowed his tone and wrote that our new constitution was built on work (ix-xogħol). Now, one needs to remember that the word Socialism is of Romans origin. In the Semitic vocabulary of the Maltese, the nearest semantic term to Socialism would be ‘xogħol’ or work. And by workers at this time, Mintoff understood the proletariat. Therefore, this was the nearest he could go (and which was politically acceptable) to the term socialism in this new constitution. In fact, the work term was put before the respect of fundamental rights and the freedom of the individual, which were the corner stone of the 1964 constitution. These fundamental elements in our constitution were never mentioned to us, students attending the Government schools in the seventies, when our teachers used to explain the Republic constitution to us. Their discourse only stopped on the premise that our Republic was based on work.
The first President of the Republic, Anthony Mamo, an accomplished lawyer by profession, stirred out from controversy. However, the same could not be said to his successor, Anton Buttigieg. In a period of the seventies, where Libyan investment was strong and important for Malta in view of the run down of the British forces from our country, Buttigieg supported Gaddafi’s view that Malta was part of the Arabic “Islamic” world by saying that geographically we are part of Africa. The following President Agatha Barbara got entangled in the toxic politics of the eighties, after the perverse electoral result of 1981. The return of the Nationalists to Government in 1987 started a process where the principles of the Republic were slowly identified with European values and the clauses in our Constitution about human rightsand freedom of expression were brought to the fore.
The Nationalist had two options after 1987. They had to either undo the 1974 Republic or consolidate it. They went for the second option. This indecision was reflected in the longest period of interregnum in the history of our presidency. Paul Xuereb was appointed Acting-President by the previous Labouradministration, a few months before the general election of 1987. He remained serving in this post for nearly two years. There will be no other instance or repetition of such a political situation, where our Republic was headed by an Acting-President. Xuereb was the first and last Acting-President of the Republic to date.
However, the way forward for change was laid down by this forgotten individual. Xuereb was Labourite, but had the acumen to realize that the presidency had not worked till then as a force of national unity. Xuereb set the corner stone towards this aim. What the nation did not notice at the time was that the tenure of this office by a person from the opposite political camp was healthy for our Republic.
His replacement by Ċensu Tabone was an uphill struggle for the Nationalists due to Labour’s boycott. Ċensu Tabone was followed by Ugo Mifsud Bonnici and Guido de Marco. Like Ċensu, they did a fabulous job to consolidate the Republican principles within the European spirit. They inspired themselves from the Italian model of Republican presidency andMifsudBonnici even wrote a manual to be used by our Presidents. Moreover, UgoMifsudBonnici ended up serving under the Labour Government between 1996 and 1998. It was the second time that the President of the day was from an opposing party to the government. He had to face the first government crisis in the history of the Republic and did a wonderful job, which heightened the prestige of his office, a fact that was recognized by the Prime Minister of the time, Alfred Sant.
Even the appointment of Eddie Fenech Adami as President, whose appointment, I was extremely skeptic about, turned out to be a successful one. He stirred away from party politics or contentious issues. George Abela's choice sealed all the good work which was done till then. The Republic became acceptable to all and sundry.
However, the Prime Minister of the time Lawrence Gonzi had to pay a political price for having chosen George Abela. His choice has helped Joseph Muscat to make his landslide victory. Thanks to Abela, for the first time, Labour appeared electable and safe. I am sure that this is the real reason why Joseph Muscat refused to appoint someone from the opposite camp as President. Politically, he did not want to give the Nationalists political advantage. A successful Nationalist President would indirectly help to solve the image problems of the Opposition. However, Gonzi’s choice made the presidency a real force of unity. The idea that the presidency was a source of political division was erased.
Gonzi’s experiment confirms that opting for someone from the opposite camp is good for the presidency. It forces the appointee to stir away from propellers. The first challenge would be to get accepted by the opposing faction who supports the party in government. George Abela did a brilliant job in this. From a politician who used to address Labour mass meetings and attacking the Prime Minister of the time, Eddie FenechAdami, who was ‘il-muċċu’ or the bunny for the Labourities, (in direct reference to his surname) he became the placated statesman who weighs his words very carefully.
The presidency of George Abela showed the important qualities that can make a presidency a successful one - these are clarity, vision, determination and enthusiasm. Any political mistakes done by this president were shoveled under the carpet and none of our political parties dared to question some of his actions or activities. Like his predecessors from Xuereb onwards, he understood that every utterance that the President makes is going to be scrutinized by the press.
After the Abela experience, it is going to be very difficult for those who hail from the same party to be seen with benevolence. The President’s office risks being associated with the political culture known as spinology, a term used to refer to the technique of the spinning of the drumsticks. This means that the current and future Presidents need to weigh their words more carefully than their predecessors.
Unfortunately, now the die is cast and even if there is a return of a PN Government, this government will not resort to Gonzi‘s experiment, which had worked well for our Presidency. It introduced the concept of a balance of power. The way local politics has unfolded means that for the decades to come, the President is going to be from the same party in Government. Labour missed a golden opportunity to consolidate a good political initiative. The social media networks’ reaction to President Colerio-Preca’saddresses shows that this office is now extremely vulnerable. Anything that the current or future President will say will be used to undermine the gained impartiality of this office. Thus, this and future presidents will have to navigate in a new political atmosphere which is going to be different from that of their predecessors.