No frills, low-cost

It’s after midnight and I’m exhausted. The quality of this article may be somewhat inferior to the usual fare to which the esteemed readers are accustomed but to be fair I am writing it under extreme duress and fatigue. I am currently in a quaint B&B in a village called Cleggan, Eire (google it… it’s worth it). We are in the far west (and these words have been chosen very carefully) of the Emerald Isle and the howling wind outside reminds me of the proximity of the Atlantic.

My better half and I have just finished an unscenic five-hour drive from Dublin during which we had planned to see, among other things, the Connemara lakes and the green, green grass of Ireland. “Had planned” are the operative words in the previous sentence. However, thanks to the lack of collaboration on the part of a low-cost airline of note, our flight that was scheduled to leave Charleroi at 6.25am actually took off at 3.30pm. For the mathematically disinclined that is a good nine hours delay. Stuck. In a gate at an airport. Imprisoned. Held against our will and better judgement.

Needless to say, when the plane did finally take off without so much as an apology, we had lost valuable time from our Easter break and the day trip across Ireland became an “evening under grey skies stuck in Dublin rush hour traffic” to be followed by a “drive in pitch darkness” during which little or nothing of the landscape could be absorbed. Most of the daylight time we got was spent performing seemingly interminable loops on and around the Dublin ring trying to get westbound on the M-something or other. Picture “Manuel Dimech Bridge”, multiply the works by a zillion, and you can imagine my frustration when at the end of the first hour we were nowhere near leaving the black hole that is the Dublin rush hour.

Anyway, we are here now. At the western tip of Europe (sort of) and badly in need of rest to pick up on what I hope will be a luckier rest of a holiday.

Meanwhile back in the Mediterranean

The last week has been typified by various electoral post-mortems in all forms of the media. I saw most of the Xarabank programme dedicated to the General Election – or supposedly dedicated to examining the election results. To be honest there was nothing surprising about the programme as a whole. The Malta Labour Party, or the headless administration that was orphaned of its “leader” (more on that later), became the prime focus of the show. This was much to the chagrin of Jason Micallef who sat besieged for the duration of a programme pulling off his best impersonation of Alfred Sant. Which came out really well. Which does not augur much for Jason Micallef.

Not answering questions is one thing. Water under the bridge, hypothetical questions, questions about surveys… we’ve heard them all before when the performer was still Jason’s old master himself. Jason seems not to have learnt the lesson that evasive answers do not exactly strike home with the viewer cum elector. No problem. He might not want to strike home for a long time yet. The main problem with Jason and whomever he was representing there (I get the impression that he represents a salaried faction of the Labour administration that seems to be hanging on for its dear post) was their apparent inability to admit that they have failed. Miserably even.

In a future Labour Party museum, the section entitled “Nails in the Labour Coffin” should include the dark ages of the early eighties and the incommunicado ages of the nineties and “noughties” when the Labour administration slowly but surely lost touch with any part of the electorate that was not part of the tribal clan. The most that could be eked out of Mr Micallef was a half-hearted shout that he is prepared to carry the burden of the responsibility of the electoral loss. Which is when Pierre Portelli pounced with the only pertinent, reasonable question he asked all evening: So why did you not resign? I feared that Jason’s eyes would fall out of their sockets.

Jason aside. Joe Saliba was a show of one-man smugness as he sat, bespectacled, grinning in to Jason’s side. I still cannot fathom what he is smiling about. It is true that, as he said, a supposed gap of 15,000 votes at the starting gun was not only closed but the PN managed to leapfrog into a lead of 1,500 odd votes. Bravo. What Joe failed to mention throughout the whole programme was the fact that this had been and will always be recorded as “the victory by default”. A victory because many, many voters would only send Dr Sant to Castille over Jason Micallef’s dead body. There was Joe Saliba sitting “victorious” thanks to a last minute own-goal and he could do nothing but gloat.

Did I say gloat? I still recall my sixth form English literature tutor, Mr Caruana Carabez, pointing out how Chaucer’s Franklin introduced himself in a manner called “diminutio”. What this meant, if my memory serves me well, was that while saying that he was a very humble person, Franklin was doing the exact opposite. Joe Saliba was Franklin incarnate. He wasted no time to remind listeners that the PN could be gloating at this time. But it was not so. Really it wasn’t. And Labour supporters are suffering in sorrow… but they shouldn’t. No really. Et cetera.

The language of politics

All of which brings me to my point. From the start of the show I could not help but notice that all participants concerned spoke about politics as though it were one big football game. Rebha, telfa, tkaxkira, duluri, frahna, batejna – all the lexicon of a sporting battle was on the table. There was no hiding this ridiculous state of Maltese politics. Nobody tried to put up a screen and act as though this shameful side did not exist. No sir. We had Portelli and Saliba invoking parallels with the Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows. Thankfully, the lemons-for-the-mourners business was not mentioned this time round but we were close. It was the local band club, the local football club and the local hobby club all banded together.

At one point Portelli could not conceal his disgust for the people who chose not to participate in this farce any longer. Referring to the non-voters he said something to the effect “They did not vote? They did me a favour. They let me choose for them instead”. Not just disenfranchised, but your vote has been used by someone else. Respect for different choices? It was only a continuation of the words we had heard on NET TV as results began to show that the small parties did not fare well once again. We had a NET commentator stating that these little mice should learn that their place is not among the “big parties”. Lovely.

Some might disagree but the only interesting part of the debate turned out to be the one on the future of the Labour leadership. All the rest was just proof that we are being fed more of the same and that notwithstanding how much the word Change can feature in MLPN manifestos, the underlying substance will be frozen for another five years…

…Unless

Unless of course voices and currents for a change in political style do not limit themselves to the debate for the reform of the electoral system. Unless the movement for throwing Old Style politics out of the window spreads to all sectors of Maltese politics, including the two main dinosaurs that run the show today.

The Labour Party has begun going up the inevitable path of transformation. Anna Mallia’s words of warning must be heeded. Many a Labourite diehard will feel that his party is open to too much public interference at this juncture and may begin to resent it. The temptation is strong to shut the party glitterati (whatever is left to shine) behind closed doors to shape its future within the closed walls of a formerly transparent house. It’s a dangerous temptation that will lead to rebuilding on the basis of spite and resentment and to rekindling the cinders of revenge and anger of 20 odd years in Opposition. It should be blatantly obvious by now that a Labour built on this kind of premise will not be able to cream off that critical mass that tips the balance. Thankfully, many other Labourites see it that way now and the discussion for change is happening. The thing is that right now everybody who has in his heart the idea of a true democracy with an unfettered choice is a bit of a Labourite now.

To the outside observer the Nationalist Party presents a schizophrenic picture. On the one hand Gonzi’s government seems to have taken the first few steps in heeding the electorates’ worries. The smaller, younger Cabinet was an important stepping stone. Much still needs to be done but a willingness to listen already provides a basis for dialogue. The party itself however is still living in cocooned denial. The champagne bubbles may still have not settled but it is setting itself dangerously on a path that will lead to one day having the Nationalist equivalent of Jason Micallef sitting on a panel and showing complete detachment from the people… and loving it.

Apocalypse now?

This danger is a grave one. I hate sounding apocalyptic but we live in a system that has been clearly written for two political parties. Over the last 30 years even our Constitution changed to reflect this reality. They enjoy exceptions under the Data Protection Act. They feel confident enough to be the ultimate arbiters of who can vote and who cannot. They have created a system where they are not accountable for the funding they receive and are not obliged to publish the source of donations. The legislation in this country pertaining to information and its propagation is in some way or another tainted by favouring the MLPN. They own a radio and TV station each, and pull the strings of a Broadcasting Authority which acts as a half-hearted referee – intent only in assuring that the two prima donnas get to overdose you with their presence on TV paid by your taxes.

This time round they went even further. One party decided that, if needed, it could decide that a dentist is actually a journalist. That same party decided that a camera crew would be held under private arrest for a long period of time in order to prevent them from doing their work. Both parties used spamming on SMS and Internet during the last campaign without as much as a by-your-leave to the gobsmacked electorate.

“If you tolerate this then your children will be dead”. I don’t think we should exaggerate that much but we must not underestimate the importance of monitoring the two parties and their development. By saying this I do not exclude that any small party that would like to enter the fray does not have any soul searching to be done. Far from it. But the truth is that right now the rules are made to please the big two and, should we allow the MLPN to become even more complacent, it will be a downhill slide from then on.

We Are All Labourites Now

Cuis custodiet ipsos custodies? I believe that the media, old and new, should shoulder a large part of this monitoring responsibility. Objective reporting and intelligent questioning could provoke smarter reactions from the two sides. Right now one issue will dominate the scenario: Who will step into Alfred Sant’s shoes? I strongly believe that it is a matter that affects each and every one of us. It is for that reason that I do not hesitate to say that, “We Are All Labourites Now”.

I’m off to bed. Tomorrow I’m doing the Ring of Kerry. I hope Kerry doesn’t mind.

Jacques René Zammit

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