Politics of personal convenience is what politicians, or the vast majority of them, practise. Politicians care little about true values, so why value politicians?
The horror is that the more time passes the more we see that, all over the world, politicians are the endemic problem. The world is full of problems and the ones who should strive to solve them compound them more.
Unless drastic action is taken, the world will go out in a flash, a heat wave or a flood. And this time the cataclysmic incident will not be driven by some vengeful God who then quickly makes up with us and gives us another chance.
Politicians, not just locally but wherever, from the US to Britain to Italy and Israel and Turkey, rarely serve anyone but their own agenda, their own skewered vision. Their sole aim is to retain their seat of power or their cushy seat in whichever chamber they sit.
Even the dreamers who set out wanting to change the world for the better become masters of convenience, compromise and deceit.
The agenda of most politicians, with few exceptions, is always centred round their own survival. After that they care most about the party or group they belong to. All this is nicely washed and camouflaged with words of solemn love and respect for citizens, country, governance and values.
I once spoke to a most reasonable and wonderful politician. It was just before the ban-hunting-or-not referendum. I asserted that the way forward was to break with tradition, condemn all silly bird-shooting, and join the 21st century. He was shocked. But the worrying bit was not that he personally was in favour of hunting. He told me he couldn’t condemn hunting as his voter base came partly from a place in Malta which was hunter-infested.
It was not a question of right or wrong; morals or principles be damned. It was just a calculation, a base mathematical equation, where potentially lost votes silence, or dilute, any values.
This is prevalent in anything and everything, from things like hunting to all-out environmental issues and migration. It is true that survival in politics needs compromises of a certain kind. But if the only measuring stick, even for honest politicians is their vote-catching capability, then we are doomed.
The political parties are the main culprits in this. My example—of hunting—is just the surface of a festering problem. Our politicians, especially when unmasked, are servile not to values but to whoever funds their campaign trail.
Malta faces several challenges and the long-term ones of sustainability, air quality and environmental disaster are extremely worrying. And getting worse because no one really does anything about them. We are awash in money, tourists are flocking here and real estate never sold so easily. All we touch—economically—seems to be turning into liquid gold.
But have we ever sat down and contemplated how long this golden age will last and what comes after the end of the gushing gold. Politicians should care but they will not do anything because they are too tied up with their own daily survival and with outside lobby groups who need Malta to turn a blind eye to long-term issues.
Malta’s two main political parties, the ones which have been in and out of power since independence, are, and have always been, shackled to groups of people whose wealth and well-being is diametrically opposed to what the simple man and woman in the street needs most.
The political parties and their funding or sourcing of funding is terribly illustrative of something rotten at the core of politics, politicians and any idea or lack of ideal of good governance.
In Malta the building frenzy has always fuelled the biggest economic growth. Without a thriving construction industry Malta goes on a slow-down. The more we build the more people have spare cash and they in turn buy more goods.
Building and selling with no thought of tomorrow or proper planning and foresight has always served us well. The building bonanza which seems to have no end is like a Ponzi scheme—but all is legal and legit.
Everyone does well. Everyone is happy. And developers need politicians to be on their side. So developers pay large amounts of money—slush money or declared—to both main political parties. With a bigger emphasis of course on the rulers of the day—at the moment the Labour Party.
Before Labour were on a winning streak, these so-called developers had the PN in their pockets so nothing has changed much. Until this problem is investigated and solved, no amount of tinkering with our constitution, no amount of braying at how corrupt our Government is, no amount of foreign organisations calling for reform will change the tide of corruption and self-serving political animals.
Until we realise that Malta’s problem is politics we cannot administer any medicine. Until someone wakes up and revolts against the system itself, we are doomed to our sorry future of ever-declining quality of life.
Our politicians serve only their own convenience. Political correctness intervened so I stopped myself saying it in the title: our politics is more akin to public conveniences. And the only thing politicians create is worthy to be flushed down a drain.