So, it’s finally official that George Vella will be nominated as Malta’s next President, the 10th since Malta became a republic in 1974.
He was the front-runner for the post, even though there were other people who were being considered. But, as early as last January, The Malta Independent had reported that the other candidates had been ruled out and that Vella was the favourite.
Five years ago, when Marie-Louise ColeiroPreca had been sent to San Anton, this had brought about changes to Joseph Muscat’s Cabinet line-up. This time, the nomination of the President will not bring about a reshuffle. Maybe this will come later in this legislature, when Malta will be naming its new European Commissioner.
Vella is a long-standing Labour stalwart, coming from the heart of Labour’s stronghold in Zejtun, and having served both the Labour Party – as its deputy leader for more than a decade – and the Labour government, twice as Foreign Minister, first under Alfred Sant in the 1990s and more recently under Muscat.
Like all politicians, he’s made his mistakes. But no-one can dispute his integrity. Unlike colleagues who sat with him around the Cabinet table at Castille, Vella was never involved in controversial issues or scandals that could have brought down the government or seriously dented its credibility.
He is considered to be on the conservative side of the political spectrum, and this may cause him some difficulties if the Labour government persists with its liberal policies.
In an interview he gave this media house last year, long before his name started to be mentioned as Malta’s head of state, he had been adamant in his position against the liberal proposals that were on the table at the time. He said, for example, that he would have voted against the embryo protection bill on moral grounds, describing the law as “a complete travesty of ethics, morality and human dignity, allegedly to remove ‘discrimination’ imposed by nature itself.”
Time will tell whether his conservatism will be translated into a decision to veto any future laws that Labour might propose in the next years. It is probable that Vella brought the subject up when he was approached by Muscat to take on the role of Head of State. It could be that Vella’s nomination is a signal from Muscat that he is giving a voice to that section of the population which thinks that Malta is moving too fast in terms of liberal laws.
Vella’s nomination still needs to be approved by Parliament, but this is a foregone conclusion considering that a simple majority is required, and that the PN will also be voting in favour.
Although the PN had said that Muscat lost the opportunity to give credibility to Malta’s institutions by choosing someone from Labour’s ranks, it did not criticise the choice of Vella per se.
The PN did the right thing by putting the nation’s interest first and foremost. Going against the nomination would have been too much of a risk.