With every passing day, there is growing conviction that the arrival of Joseph Muscat, as leader of the Malta Labour Party, has made a significant change in the Maltese political scenario. There were those who considered it as a fresh breeze, with the potential of giving the Labour Party a new lease of life. Muscat’s opening moves justified initial expectations, and continue to attract the consistent attention of the media.
Snipers, entrenched on the other side of the political divide, raised their heads over the parapet to take several pot shots. They included inveterate champions of the status quo, as well as mercenaries of faceless strategists operating from Pieta.
There were those who instantly pointed out that Muscat’s contenders for the leadership “spoke sourly of their future in the party”. Some tried to question his political credentials. Others came from behind to lament that the election of Dr Anglu Farrugia and Dr Toni Abela as deputy leaders at the MLP delegates conference “will prove to be two millstones around Dr Muscat’s neck, millstones that have already negated the credibility he had gained” in his first weeks in office.
At best, snipers may have nuisance value at given moments, and mercenaries will always be mercenaries. But, in reality, faceless strategists, who have taken his measure and went into action, see Joseph Muscat as a threat.
Muscat’s declared objective is to re-ignite the Maltese democratic engine. He is intent on clearing the obstacles, which have arrested progress, and on eradicating corruption root and branch. He is pleading for a system of government by consent, and one that is open to citizens with the best qualifications.
He is pleading for all-party cooperation on issues of national interest, and is demanding that the process of political party confrontation is orderly and transparent.
Deep down, Joseph Muscat’s vision is by no means revolutionary. He is not proposing to reinvent the wheel. All that he is asking for is that the Maltese political process be given the kiss of life, so that the body politic is resuscitated, to run like other viable democracies.
The faceless interests who have manipulated a sham democracy in the Maltese Islands for so many years consider that Muscat’s vision is subversive, and a threat to their supremacy – hence the concentrated fire, the venom and the vehemence of criticism from certain quarters.
The erstwhile, acid comments and character assassination attempts, formerly levelled at Alfred Sant and his predecessors, suddenly became a thing of the past, to be substituted by a rising tide of criticism of Joseph Muscat.
One could anticipate with certainty that, this time round, the faceless strategists, now embedded in the Pieta glass house, will double their efforts as they see clear signs of electoral response to Muscat’s music.
It would not be amiss to remark that, up to now, no one has yet opposed, in clear and direct terms, Joseph Muscat’s call for a “Stagun Gdid”(a new political season). The criticism levelled at Joseph Muscat so far has been personal, and often more strained than fanciful.
Often enough, it has been venomous, and at all times reflective of a rising sense of alarm.
This springs from the fact that the Pieta strategists are not only sensing the aspirations of the broad electorate for a breath democratic fresh air; they are also worried by the increasing frequency of internal party dissidence, which threatens the serenity in the fragile Pieta glasshouse.
Joseph Muscat has capitalised on the electoral thirst for change There is a yearning for enterprising leadership that places the national interest above party partisanship, and one that is willing and able to root out corruption and the sort of administrative incompetence that has bled the taxpaying class white.
Muscat struck the right note in this regard when he opened the way for politics of cooperation, rather than politics of confrontation.
This point was taken up in the editorial of The Malta Independent on 24 June in its comment “It is hard to remember any of Dr Muscat’s predecessors – both Labour and Nationalist Party leaders – being so open in the way they spoke favourably about their political adversaries.”
The same editorial pressed home the point that Dr Muscat gained credibility in his criticism of other measures with which the MLP did not agree – “such as the way the government reactivated its membership in the Partnership for Peace, the increase in emissions, the failure to lower income tax rates as promised, and the growing waiting lists at Mater Dei Hospital”.
This said, what does the immediate future hold?
It takes two to tango, and unless the sitting Gonzi administration opts for a policy of cooperation and respect for the Opposition, the prospects for a new political season will be delayed.
But the electorate has clearly indicated that it has matured and craves change. In the immediate weeks to come, it may very well become restless, if its legitimate democratic aspirations are frustrated for party partisan ends.
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