Alternattiva Demokratika chairman HARRY VASSALLO is on a mission to change Maltese politics. He tells Michael Carabott that apart from safeguarding the environment, his main aims are to introduce discussion and consensus and to see local councils wrestled away from political influence to be given back to the people.

What is Alternattiva’s local election campaign based on and what will councillors focus on if they are elected?

We have a local council election manifesto but every local council has specific needs. People should choose the best people from their locality to improve quality of life. The Iklin candidate, for example, will focus on trying to give the locality more identity. We want local council elections to be just that, an election to serve the locality in question.

Does AD treat it as an advantage or disadvantage to have fewer candidates contesting the election?

We would like to cover all the bases but we will not just fill in the gaps. We need candidates that can build on our reputation. We have an excellent track record and want to keep it. Just picking any old Tom, Dick or Harry to have someone represented in a locality defeats the point of what we believe in. The emphasis is on quality rather than quantity.

AD has four elected councillors. What has the focus of their work been on?

They are definitely working for their localities. But, their mere presence permits a better exchange between all represented on councils. This was my experience while serving the Sliema local council. There was an overwhelming PN majority but we were able to contribute. There were two independent Labour councillors and myself.

We definitely carried our weight and were allowed to. There was a lot of debate on the council and this is where we were able to help. It helps to have our minority attitude. There is no question of dominance for us, we have developed the skills to negotiate and to gain you have to give and in turn lead others to do the same.

Can AD match Arnold Cassola’s 22,000 votes gained in the MEP election?

That is the million dollar question. It is really up to people. What we want to do is keep our feet on the ground. In the last local council election we went from 6.1 per cent to 6.7 per cent which is a very good show for any green party anywhere. The 9.3 per cent garnered in the European Parliament elections was spectacular even on a European level. However, we have to live with the fact that with council elections, the electoral commission takes results holistically, not just where parties contested so the figures are massively diluted.

Do you think that the recent amendments to the Local Councils Act discriminate against independent candidates wanting to contest for mayor?

Yes. But there are many other things discriminating against independent candidates. For example, TV campaigns should be taken out of the equation. The fact that a third of local council elections are held every year means we have a general election every year. We should ease off and not use local council elections as a national poll. All parties have to get together to find a way of doing this.

Should the European Parliament and local council elections be grouped together in one?

Well, to be honest I have other ideas. I would like to see them localised further. If you tie them up with European elections, you would distort them. It is possible to have a couple of local elections each month. It would be impossible for political parties to mount a repetitive TV campaign, and people just would not be interested in following it.

It would become boring, and that would de-politicise the issue and put the ‘local’ back into local council elections.

I would like local council elections to set an example. You could have small localities where people just dump all papers out of the ballot boxes onto a table and sort things out without all the top security and enormous expense it involves.

We do see that the other parties tend to manipulate results as we saw with Zejtun and Marsa. They use them as polls for national politics and keep an eye on them from this perspective. You also have situations where councils only get things done in the run up to election time.

AD is in favour of adopting the European Constitution as was evident when you visited Brussels and the Greens internally voted in favour of doing so. Do you think a common front can be reached from all parties ?

This is a very important subject. This is an opportunity for us to make a step of great historical importance by finding common ground. It is of great disappointment to me to see that we are not Maltese, but rather Nationalist or Labourite. Even if you look at Independence and Republic Day, they were events of conflict and have remained to be.

There is no Maltese national day. I would like to see approval of the Constitution to be confirmed by referendum. It would be a mistake to try and avoid one. It could be an occasion for us all to put the EU issue behind us.

I am very disappointed that the PN seems to have taken all the credit for EU membership.

Not that I want to over-inflate our (AD’s) contribution, but the 22,000 people that voted for us in the European Parliament election must be really disappointed of not being taken any notice of.

From an economic point of view, we must remove all sorts of prejudice and dislike of the EU from the minds of people who opposed membership. We must be in a position to seize every opportunity available. It is a question of people being allowed to take the initiative. If you have half the country not even willing to consider tapping the EU’s opportunities, they are depriving themselves and the economy of the benefits.

It has been one year since Lawrence Gonzi was elected Prime Minister. Things started well enough, but has there been any improvement in political discussion since?

I think we have actually gone backwards. In the two years before joining EU the consultation process in MEUSAC saw a vast array of stakeholders being part of the country’s decision-making process. It was as non-partisan as it could be. Social partners and others presented their professional and sectoral interests and we really saw a different way of doing politics. The non-partisan aspect of politics in this particular issue was given its due weight.

The hopes that this process created at the time have been dashed. We have not seen the will for consultation on that scale since then.

Would AD ever consider a coalition?

We must make alliances as and when necessary. Just by looking at us, you can see that we are not a political party aimed at taking a majority. In fact, it is crucial to our name not to do so. We are an alternative because we have a different way of looking at politics. Both other parties need over 50 per cent support to exist. We do not want anyone to have over 50 per cent and that would lead to everyone having to discuss things.

AD has penetrated local politics. Do you think the electorate will think about voting Alternattiva in a national election?

I do believe that a sufficient sector of the country is in tune with us in having realised that the major political problem is that the two major parties exclude one another. A good sector of the population wants this addressed immediately and the Greens are the only party that can bring about such change.

You have gained more percentage points in the last election. Is that a reflection of more people taking on board third party politics or is it protest-voting?

What is the difference? If people shift from PN to MLP, are they protest-voting? Or is it that they want something new? AD can change Maltese politics by making consensus necessary. Our presence in parliament, in any position, would change the game completely. We can ask questions that others never do. I do not think anyone else can offer this, so people who vote AD are not protesting, they are reaching out for complete change.

Whereas the MLP and PN can only run on a five-year plan, it is necessary for us to plan in the long-term. We also bring a holistic view into politics, we see the connections. Many people are beginning to realise that it is not the ideal situation for our government ministries and departments to not communicate

Many people are beginning to realise that what I have said is necessary. It is not bureaucracy, it is a question of inability to network. Different ministries guard their own patch.

It has almost been a year since we joined the EU and there is talk of Malta losing Objective One Status: Your comments?

I believe that the danger of Malta losing Objective One Status has been over-inflated. Malta will retain the status for a variety of reasons. The EU wants to make success of its members and will make an effort to avoid putting countries at a disadvantage. It would be unfair and a handicap to Malta’s development.

What is AD’s position on recycling and the Sant’ Antnin recycling plant?

We want recycling to be maximised and optimised. We are in favour of the use of bio-gas recycled from waste. Whether this should be done all in one place or just in Marsascala is another issue.

It was perhaps easier for government to re-site at Marsascala because the residents have put up with the mess for 10 years already and this would also avoid disturbing another community.

The site selection process has not been analysed sufficiently. When one realises that there will be a whole scale demolition and rebuilding of the plant, discussion for re-siting should have been as open as possible. We have not been consulted on these issues since 2001.

We made our contribution to waste management strategy but cannot endorse it all as it was a joint effort and we obviously objected to some things. Since then government has kept its cards close to its chest.

We are disappointed that the government plans to minimise recycling to produce 15,000 tonnes of compost when we have 200-250,000 tonnes of organic waste that has to be recycled somehow. We can do a lot better than that, not necessarily at Sant’ Antnin.

We are going to see landfills exhausted much earlier as a result and we will also head towards incineration.

We are concerned that no one has been consulted on this issue. The government addressed the issue very late and wants to satisfy the minimum EU standards. That is not the way things should be done. All solutions need to be fashioned according to Malta’s needs and it suits us to fashion the waste infrastructure to our needs.

The PN in particular says that AD is more of a lobby group than a political party, how does the party rebut such claims?

I think the PN wishes we were just a lobby group. We contested the 1992 election and are a legally recognised political party and I think the time is up for PN’s pipe dreams. We are definitely a political player. The people have said so.

We have no problem in forming alliances with parties, lobby groups or personalities. It confuses our rivals that have a very straight-laced way of doing politics.

We have no qualms in agreeing with people who agree with us. The other parties find it heretical to concede to anyone. This is why they confuse the issue and describe us as a lobby group. We will work with whoever is willing to help us to reach our goal of creating consensus politics.

The government and WasteServ recently rebutted claims made by AD over the Scott Wilson landfills report. Who is correct, AD or the government?

Obviously I will say AD.

We should take precautions, first not to sedate people and then worry about issues when they finally surface. We would rather have the government make efforts to eliminate the possibility of a threat rather than tell us the threat does not exist. The report is an important quantification of our problems. Its contents are inescapable even though we criticise some of the methodology. Leachate levels were measured during the dry season for example, which gave ‘cleaner’ results than if it had been measured during the rainy season.

What the report says is what one can easily assume. If we dumped asbestos, demolition waste and metals in landfills for years, it means you will have contaminated the area with asbestos and metals. If we dumped plastics and they automatically spontaneously combusted year after year, we can safely assume that there are dioxins in there. We have known this and said it for years.

We have dioxin emissions, but this does not mean that people will be dropping like flies. It does, however, pose a health risk. Part of the problem is that the precautionary measures are very expensive. There is also the expense of re-siting residents and businesses away from harmful toxins.

The PN says AD never comes out with concrete policies, is this the case?

We have always had concrete policies. In 2002 we had 450 proposals. I am glad to see that the Environment Minister had time to look at them and was even seen waving it around during the Marsascala recycling plant information meeting, so he should know that we have proposals. We are always willing to participate in consultation to give input on specific matters.

If the government cared to consult us we would elaborate the proposals further, however, we are not the government. It is the government’s role to make specific proposals and to accept criticism. The government is making a serious mistake in being very aggressive to all critics and opponents. For example, one of the MLP’s position papers was aggressively dismissed. Such an attitude ends all forms of cross party contributions and discussion.

The Nationalist Party feels insecure in government now and yet it still considers itself the natural government as it has done for many years. It is clear that the country no longer has blind faith in the PN’s policy making.

Your message to the electorate?

I hope that the electorate will choose the best candidates who will show the greatest commitment to working for their locality. If they want to join our project to change Maltese politics for the better, the invitation is there. We welcome their assistance and will not let them down, we have the track record to prove it.