On Wednesday we voted in the House of Representatives to thank the President of Malta for his address on the occasion of the opening of Parliament. Once a new Parliament is convened, the government outlines its policies and plans for the coming years through the address which the Head of State makes on its behalf.

Parliament then discusses a motion moved by the youngest government MP to thank the President for that address. Although the opposition did not have anything to fault, they opted to vote against. That much can be understood since the opposition might wish to tell us that there are different policies which it prefers – ironically it did nothing of the sort! What is not understandable is that the opposition did not grant any pairing to the government to enable it to carry on with its duties on behalf of the nation.

What is pairing all about? Is it some carte blanche that allows any government member to abstain from the House for any imaginable reason? Is it to offer the government a safety cushion if any of its MPs decides not to come over for one vote or another?

If you have been relying on what some opposition spokespersons have been stating, you may well be tempted to assume that the response to these two questions is in the affirmative! The truth is that the response to both questions is a flat and unequivocal “no”.

Pairing is only granted to allow government ministers to carry on with their official duties outside of the country in the national interest. It is also granted to cover genuine cases where a person is ill and cannot make it to the House. Malta does not live in isolation from the rest of the world. We have particular duties to see to, not only within the context of the European Union but also within other institutional frameworks such as the 5+5 set-up which brings together European and Mediterranean countries. It was from one such meeting that the government had to absent itself on Wednesday because of the irresponsible attitude that the opposition seems content to persist with.

I shall grant it to the opposition that it is going through what must be a decision making vacuum for the time being. It is a long protracted vacuum and the opposition can only blame itself for taking so long to sort out its internal matters. Nor is this time frame doing it much good – their leadership race, which in its own right should be a healthy and democratic exercise, has degenerated into much infighting that has been aptly described by one of the contenders as “poisoned”. Labour is not only being dominated by currents and crosscurrents but worse of all by undercurrents that appear to be swaying relentlessly. The delegates’ entire list including all relevant personal information has even been “leaked” to a newspaper which naturally enough just enjoyed carrying a survey among those delegates to discover well ahead of Labour’s general conference for whom will the delegates be voting.

What happens within the Labour camp concerns us all if for no other reason because we are discovering daily from one Labour spokesperson after another precisely why they should not have been (and were not) entrusted to govern this country. From the looks of it, we are still going through a national learning curve! If only the same spokespersons were as generous with their insights and information before the general election!

What we are discovering from within Labour’s own camp makes all our “warnings” against the dangers of Labour assuming office – and yes, it was too close for comfort!! – sound rather mild and diplomatic in comparison to the real thing.

Which brings me to my last point: the government has a mandate to govern – to fulfil its electoral programme over the span of the next five years. Just as it would not make sense to try to implement all of that programme in the last three months or even in the last year, it would be ridiculous to imagine that the mandate can be implemented in its entirety in the first three months or even within the first year.

Government will fulfil its mandate and in that process the widest possible participation by civil society, by the general public will be required – to achieve for the nation as a whole the successes that we deserve.

Francis Zammit Dimech is a Nationalist MP