The rise in the electoral temperature, as Malta approaches the run-in to the next general election, is a sure sign that the country’s democratic environment is not listless. A good many citizens suddenly become conscious of their collective sovereignty and mean to exercise it.
At the core of our democratic system is the notion that effective government requires elected officials to be accountable to the electorate. Periodic elections solve part of the problem of accountability. The effectiveness of the democratic system depends on the regularity and character of these elections. Our system calls for free and fair elections and allows the electorate to exercise its sovereignty by holding politicians fully accountable. Is this enough?
Critical issue
The critical issue is whether this basic mechanism for securing accountability compels governments and public officials to be responsive to the country’s citizens and whether accountability, thus conceived and exercised, is satisfactory and meets the democratic bill.
In the light of the Maltese experience, clearly this is not enough.
It seems to me that the electorate lacks the means to exercise its sovereignty in between elections. In vast areas of the administration, situations arise where transparency is poor or altogether non-existent. Certain
channels of information are sometimes non-functional, sometimes blocked. There are situations where politicians and bureaucrats have the upper hand and exploit their advantage.
In this environment, possibilities for corruption and the abuse of power arise every so often – perhaps too often. The sovereign electorate becomes the victim of such abuse, or the outraged but helpless spectator, without the means of instant right to demand accountability.
Need of adequate machinery
If there was well-established machinery to institute an independent and transparent investigation when serious evidence comes to light or when serious allegations are made, the sovereign electorate could either hold the culprits accountable, once the facts are well established, or it could set its mind at rest if the allegations prove to be groundless.
As things stand, situations often arise where suspicion feeds on itself, and where corruption continues to breed in the crevices of the administrative framework.
The saga of the Voice of the Mediterranean is a clear example. Serious charges of abuse have been made by the Accountant General no less, and evidence has been brought to light, purporting to support these charges. Yet the follow-up seems to have run into a quagmire and one now gets the impression that the whole issue has been swept under the carpet.
Principle of accountability
This makes mincemeat of the principle of accountability. The sovereign electorate had no means of getting to the bottom of this affair, and to pin down responsibility where it belonged.
This episode was not a flash in the pan. There have been innumerable instances where corruption was alleged, or charges of abuse of power and blatant clientelism were aired.
It serves no constructive purpose if one were to capitalise on individual instances of this sort.
The issue is one of principle: namely whether our democratic set-up could be distilled so that, in between elections, the principle of accountability will have teeth, and whether the administrative framework could operate in a climate of transparency, to the fullest satisfaction of the sovereign electorate.
As the electoral campaign hots up, politicians will engage in close combat, with the result that they will be tempted to focus on issues related to their respective constituencies, and to topics that stoke the fires of partisanship.
The big issues are often lost in the wash – which is a pity.
The business of strengthening our democratic foundations is an imperative deserving of priority.
The topmost imperative is to ensure that electoral sovereignty is sustained by viable rules of accountability.
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