When the people’s representatives take their seat in the House of Representatives next Wednesday, they face a rather difficult challenge, certainly not the rubberstamp they are sometimes, wrongly, made to be.
Voting for a new President of the Republic is a solemn and serious duty, made even more serious and solemn this time round by the fact that the President-in-waiting, Dr George Abela, does not come from the political class.
As long as Parliament chose one of its own, as it did over the past years, except for Sir Anthony Mamo, it could well say it knew the candidate and where he (or she) stood as it had the past actions and speeches to go by. This time, a non-politician is being voted in.
In this, Malta is quite different from other countries. Many are the countries where the President is chosen by the electorate (US, France, etc), so the President is the manifestation of the will of the people, expressed in a popular vote. In other countries, those who are chosen for high posts (ministers in the US, Commissioners in the EU) submit to public hearings where they have to defend themselves and their past, as well as their future plans.
The nearest to Malta’s case is Italy but even here there are significant differences. It is true that Parliament in Rome elects the President, but the vote is a secret one whereas in Malta the secret vote is not even considered.
The way the choice of President has been made over the past years has been a question of might and right. The parliamentary majority chooses the candidate and then proceeds to impose – for that is the right word – its choice on the minority and on the country. There is, somewhere, a sort of Constitutional obligation that requires the Prime Minister to consult the Leader of the Opposition, but this is a rather formal duty that in the past consisted mainly of the prime minister of the time informing his Opposition counterpart of the choice and that’s about it. The way it was usually done was thus quite skimpy: choose a party elder and install him at San Anton. There were times when the Opposition voted against and times when it abstained.
This time round, at least speaking before the event, it would seem that things are different. Not only is Dr Abela not a politician, although he is well known (and liked) by many sectors of society, but he is uniquely placed to express not the will of the majority against the minority but the various facets of Maltese society.
Even here, however, what may (and should) have been a quite bold step forward has been mishandled, so it is on Wednesday night that we will know whether the forces of disruption have overcome the forces of national reconciliation.
One of Dr Abela’s strengths is his past within the fold of the Labour Party and that of the General Workers Union, and this is what seems to have inspired Dr Gonzi to propose him and Labour to accept him.
But Dr Gonzi did not offer the Labour Opposition to nominate one from their side; he came up with the name himself. And, as all will recall, the manner of announcing the choice was a complete mess. Even though the PL parliamentary group and the PN one duly approved the choice the next day, there was quite a distinct feeling, more on the PN side if the truth be said, that the choice and nomination had been treated with undue and unseemly haste.
Ever since that day, Dr Abela has shunned all public appearances and made no public statements. This may well have been praiseworthy, as it denotes prudence and a quite rare respect for the sovereignty of Parliament, but at the same time this “President in purdah” has allowed all kinds of fancies and fantasies to creep into the public mind. One only has to read certain newspapers to see that the Labour rank and file still perceive Dr Abela’s nomination as yet another scheme by the PN administration, even to the extent that some see it as a Machiavellian strategy to emasculate the Opposition. Others see Dr Abela’s nomination as a sop to the Opposition, but quite without any underlying substance. It is clear to everyone that relations between majority and minority, never good, have to a certain extent deteriorated over the past weeks. So where is the national reconciliation that Dr Abela’s nomination is supposed to bring about?
Once chosen, Dr Abela has much work ahead of him. We wait to hear his proposed plan of action in his speech on Saturday, once his self-imposed purdah is over. The biggest gap in the country is between the politicians and the people. Past presidents, for all their efforts, still came from the political class and could never bridge the gap. Dr Abela must be all the more a President of the people.
It is true that the President has some well-delineated Constitutional rights and duties, but over and above all this the President represents the country and he must see his role as being that of bringing the country together. His personal charisma must lead him to leave the four walls of his palaces and to go out and about and meet the people, especially those who, for one reason or another, do not feel inclined to ascend the stairs of the palace.
We are quite sure Dr Abela understands all this and more, and will be able to serve. One last note: let not the new President think and behave as though the Office and the palaces now belong to him and to his family.