There are no politics without a confrontation of ideas, but the less obdurate that confrontation, the better.

Democratic order can be maintained most easily and with the least coercion among citizens who have most in common, and that applies to principles as well as sentiments, hopes, aversions and memories.

Differences of opinion there must be, and these have to be aired. In the end, it is the elected government, freely chosen by the majority, that exercises authority and wields power. This is the first rule of democracy.

The second rule is that, if there is to be any discussion and any government by consent, there must be a degree of community of fundamental sentiments.

These sentiments represent the common ground and are derived from the need of man’s moral nature to combine and cooperate. These sentiments are only capable of implementation if democratic society is as aware of the need for economic democracy, as it is of the need for individual freedom.

The taming of power

All of this calls for tolerance – for the taming of power. The democratic control of political policy has to be extended to include the democratic control of economic power.

The positive processes of political democracy demand that economic power is not concentrated in the hands of the political executive and that the executive, as well as its parliamentary opposition, navigate by the same star – the consent of the governed.

In any stable democracy, the core of electoral opinion stands on the middle ground. It is this vital segment of the electorate that swings the pendulum at any election. In a democratic environment, it is usually the sole arbiter.

It reacts to coercion, to arrogance, to intolerance, to high-handedness and to all extremes. This is why it invariably gives short shrift to politicians who move towards the fringes.

This comes naturally to mature and sensible voters who find themselves comfortable in, and cherish the middle ground. Such voters have been growing in numbers and are increasingly conscious of their democratic prerogative.

The more level-headed politicians have a healthy respect for them, and this explains why democratically-oriented parties everywhere gravitate towards the middle ground of politics.

Threat to democracy

In Malta, as elsewhere, not all politicians are level-headed. There are those who are easily tempted to ride roughshod over their adversaries on the strength of their parliamentary majority. These arrogant hotheads mistake their majority for a divine right to impose their will with or without the consent of the electorate.

There are others who feel frustrated by parliamentary niceties and are easily tempted to consider themselves as lords of all they survey.

They are, at once, wrong and intrinsically inimical to democracy. By abandoning the middle ground and moving towards the fringes, they risk interdiction by the body of floating voters at the first opportunity.

This is bound to happen as surely as night follows day if – and only if – the democratic framework can bear the tension and the stress until the next election. Until the electoral conscience is purged by an election, there will be a cost expressed in loss of political stability and economic dislocation.

It is therefore reasonable to argue that the need for the Maltese political parties to hold to the middle ground has never been greater – in their own and in the national interest.

A modicum of consensus is of the essence on the more basic issues – and a consensus means that both sides should be considerate and willing to make judicious concessions to each other. The alternative is the unthinkable and it may be grim.

Unpalatable alternatives

The alternative could be of more than one variation.

One could take the form of open-ended intransigence on the part of the two main political parties, stretching the democratic game and the parliamentary process to the extreme limit, until the roof caves in and the temple is destroyed.

The strongest would then survive and emerge from the rubble to scratch a living behind the rest of the world.

Another variation would take the form of a deliberate attempt to disenchant the hard core of floating voters holding the middle ground, with the intent of scaling the democratic bastions from the fringes. If the extremists were to win, it would be goodbye to democracy as we know it.

The Maltese people have lived for so many centuries under one foreign yoke or another, only to become masters in their own home 43 years ago. Notwithstanding domestic strains and stresses, and the hazards of a troublesome region, they managed to perform adequately the democratic balancing act. They did so because their leaders were skilled at brinkmanship, and knew how to hedge their bets.

Latter-day leaders have a much tighter and more difficult rope on which to walk. For one thing, there’s no cold war any more, and they have to manoeuvre within the context of European Union membership.

Thirdly, they know full well that Malta can only survive if it keeps its place in the sun in a highly competitive and globalised market. No political victory is worth savouring in a scenario of a disintegrating economy.

If Maltese democracy is to survive and look with reasonable confidence to the future, it must make sure of its political and economic stability. The foundations of a stable and democratic future must rest on the solid support of middle and lower income classes, who have been set back and have every interest in their own survival.

This is indeed a world of change. But change must make its case before receiving the welcome it merits.

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