Last Sunday’s leading article in this newspaper with the title “Mishandling the country” was singularly perceptive. It referred to three successive faux pas committed by the Gonzi administration.
The first was the deliberate act of discrimination by Prime Minister Gonzi, when he handpicked a few trusted journalists to address them on the government’s future budget policy. When challenged, Dr Gonzi insisted on his right to pick and choose.
The second was Dr Austin Gatt’s ministerial ban on a newspaper’s interview with the Film Commissioner, on the grounds that the latter had not cleared the interview with the Ministry.
No sooner was Dr Gatt criticized by the newspaper concerned, that he hastened to uphold the theory that, since a responsible Minister has to face an election every five years, he is also responsible for all decisions of his subordinates.
Folies de grandeur
The Malta Independent on Sunday took the view that “If this government is, in any way, still hoping to win the public’s approval, which it seems to be losing, surely the way ahead is not to continue doing things as it is doing, let alone allow them to get worse. The way to the country, to the people, lies through the media, and the government seems hell-bent on turning the media against it”
The sting was in the tail-end. “Unless the government wants to go back to the Lorry Sant times,” it held, “it is still in time to reverse direction”.
It would be a mistake simply to assume that the Gonzi administration slipped on a banana skin three times too often.
This was no comedy of errors.
These episodes betrayed the folies de grandeur of an administration inebriated with power, after well-nigh 18 years in the nation’s cockpit.
The administration is tired and is showing signs of senility. There seems to be no centre of government – every ministry seems to be ploughing its own furrow.
Pitfalls
Each ministry has its own communications official, some of whom keep the media at arm’s length. They have not been programmed to identify really hot issues, and to tackle them collectively on a national basis.
And, in any case, most of these officials have no journalistic depth of field. Ministers stray into pitfalls, and there is no experienced consultant to hold their hand.
Democracy presumes transparency and accountability. It means freedom of information, which is a necessary safeguard against dictatorship.
A free and independent press is a bulwark against abuse of power. Its role is to champion the public interest and to act as its watchdog. It will therefore react instinctively against political manipulation of the media and much more so against abuse of political power.
Pamela Hansen put it succinctly in The Sunday Times last week. “The whole point of a free press is that we do not produce filtered, watered down information, which will not cause damage to the government, a minister, or the Opposition Leader for that matter. We have different agendas. Politicians hide, we expose.”
Solidly-entrenched interests
This sort of argument would not go down well with solidly-entrenched politicians who might be tempted to resort to all devices in order to maintain the status quo and guarantee that the current rulers, or their designated successors, remain in power for decades to come.
It may well be that, in the absence of rotation of power, it will also be assured that no elected successors will turn up to open the files and investigate the way things have been run for so many years.
Seen from this perspective, it should come as no surprise if the champions of the status quo seek to control the information machine, in pursuit of partisan interests.
Aberrations
This is anathema to all the basic rules in the democratic book.
Abuse of political power of this kind opens the gate to all sorts of aberrations. Only yes-men ready to toe the line laid down by their political superiors, will survive. Only mediocrities without a mind of their own, and without any talents, and flunkies adept at flattery, will be in demand.
These qualities will tend to prevail among official “experts” and “consultants” who will enthuse about “economic progress”, when the country is in recession, the economy is stagnating, and unemployment figures are peaking.
If and when there is effective media control, the electorate is subjected to a brainwashing process under a regime adamantly opposed to the democratisation of political life, on the grounds that the status quo must be maintained for as long as it takes.
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