Why does someone like Carmelo Abela, touted to be one of the stars in the Labour Party, not realise that he is comparing apples with oranges when it comes to the election processes in the Nationalist Party compared to the Labour Party? (Double standards, TMID, 14 July).
Why does he comment on the fact that Paul Borg Olivier was elected secretary general by obtaining 41 votes, while in comparison it took something like 890 delegates to finally elect one of the leaders of the Labour Party?
Why does he complain that the Nationalist Party supporters remarked that the MLP’s election process was skewed when a leader was elected?
I tell you why – things are done differently at the Nationalist Party.
To begin with the 60 executive members are elected by hundreds of delegates, who charge the 60 with such a process. They trust the ones they elect and live with their decisions. This is no less democratic than the MLP’s process; only it is calmer, less dramatic and less fraught with factions fighting factions behind and in front of the public gallery. The process has been tested and has been successful many times, in succession, in electing excellent candidates resulting in several election and referendum victories in a row.
To top it all, never, to my knowledge has a petition been presented to the Nationalist Executive Committee asking it to review its election process to include the delegates let alone all carrying card members. The Labour Party delegates were presented with a petition signed by over 200 card carrying members, a vote taken and defeated. And that is fine – no quarrel here, because in the eyes of many, the delegates had the right to vote one way or the other – and they did very democratically, but on closer examination, democracy seems to have been thrown out the window when one remembers that the main objective of defeating the motion was solely to minimise the chances of one of the contestants for the post of leader. On one hand, one has a “democratic” process but on the other, a malicious procedure to bar a valid contestant from competing on a level playing field! Talk about double standards!
No, the Nationalists have no right to “advise” the Labour Party how to run their business, but on the other hand the Labour Party should not be surprised if their dubious tactics induce negative comments from Nationalists and others.
Mr Abela chose a Shakespearean quote from Macbeth – Look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent under it and continued, “is very appropriate to the Nationalist Party”.
The Nationalists’ serpent looks more like a tiny lizard compared to the MLP’s boa which already made an appearance on 5 June and is posed for another grand constriction come 4 and 5 August.
The rest of Mr Abela’s article was more balanced, so much so, that it made the intro look more out of place.
His foray into the “divorce” issue was timely because the situation does create a double standard but even here the solution is complicated and requires more study and consultation with both the public and the Church authorities. Let’s face it, civil divorce is still 180 degrees apart from the Church’s “annulments” and an accommodation of both systems has to be found in Catholic Malta before any government will dare tread on this contentious issue.
Joe Martinelli
London, Ontario
Canada