Now that the Labour Party has finished choosing the people to occupy its various top posts, how does it look like?
One title comes to mind, although the reference is to the title alone, not the rest of the Andrew Lloyd Webber famous musical or storyline: Joseph (Muscat) and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat.
The Labour Party that emerges from the various elections that have been held is just that: an amazing technicolour dreamcoat: some patches are raw red, others less so, and the overall impression is that of a variety, of a lack of uniformity, one could also say a certain lack of cohesiveness.
This, at least, is not just the impression one gets from outside the party but also from talking to party insiders. There has been far too much mirth, on the Nationalist side, over the choice of Anglu Farrugia and Toni Abela as the party’s deputy leaders, much anger both outside and inside the party at the re-election of Jason Micallef, and much sarcasm at the return of Alex Sceberras Trigona, a former anti-EU campaigner, to head the party’s foreign desk now inextricably linked to the EU and PES.
Many compare this “amazing technicolour dreamcoat” to what comes across as an orderly and almost uniform Nationalist Party; but the difference may well be one of perception, not one of substance: the Nationalist Party too has its own internal politics, its groupings, and dare one say it, its rivalries. Yet it somehow keeps everything inside, while Labour seems to relish spilling it all out, by leaking it to the non-party media.
Every party has its own DNA, history and collective memory, and whatever outsiders may say or hope for, in the end it is what its backbone, its grassroots say what goes. In the case of the Labour Party, others, such as Dom Mintoff for instance, have tried to mould the party in their own image but even Dom was forced down and then out at the end. Alfred Sant too ran a tight ship but the acrimony that surfaced after the election defeat has shown this too was counter-productive: people just sat back and let the leader do everything, coming out to damn him when he lost again.
Joe Muscat, the new leader, has so far got a mixed and rather negative reception from the non-party media. He is perceived as being mostly submerged under the stresses and tensions of a party erupting in feuds and internal crises. This perception may be the right one, but again, it may also be the wrong one. After all, his first act as new leader was to open up the party to all who in any way could be said to be from the party’s family.
The party is a very broad church and by refusing to accept this basic fact Alfred Sant led it to its downfall. Joe Muscat would, in our opinion, be ill-advised to try and repeat the concentration of power and the tight reins of the Sant times, for this, as sure as eggs is eggs, will lead to people leaving in droves. It would be far, far better for Dr Muscat to be the facilitator, the mediator, the point of reference of the party as a whole, rather than to try one way or another to mould the party to himself. Even as we speak, the past multiple elections (it is crazy for a party to have to go through all these general conferences and elections, but there you have it: it’s the party DNA) have led to people being dropped, from Evarist Bartolo to Michael Falzon. It is Dr Muscat’s duty to spearhead the effort to win them, and others like them, back.
Even so, however, even a broad church needs to converge on the essentials, and for a political party the essential is not about winning the next election, or returning to power, but to agree on a common message, an understanding what the party exists for and what it intends to offer the Maltese people. It will be Dr Muscat’s most important task ahead: to keep the party away from just trying to win the election to get back to power, away from trying to promise anything and everything to its supporters in terms of the kickbacks and perks which appertain to those who win, and to keep the party focused on understanding what its mission should be and what it has to offer the country.
The events and stresses of the past weeks have left the party and its leadership in a state of stagnant water, with undercurrents and unsuspected wind shears, or at least it appears so to outsiders. This state of affairs is confusing party insiders too, not just the outsiders or those who one day may be attracted to the party. In this day and age, when one has to read the paper of the party in government to get any information about the party in Opposition, it is clear this is a dangerous state of drift. Communication with the party’s grass roots has become a problem, regardless of the multitude of statements spouting out of the party machine. This is Joe Muscat’s most urgent issue. Instead of trying to make believe the amazing technicolour dreamcoat is unicolour, or that it does not exist, how about for once rejoicing in its variety and colourfulness?