In 1998 – it must have been around June or July – when Dom Mintoff was making those seven-hour speeches in Parliament which left all Malta riveted to their radio sets, I had written a leader (I was editor of our daily paper then) in which I invited Dr Sant to try and come to an agreement with Dom rather than go to the country.

Needless to say, Dr Sant took no notice of my advice. He was, it seems, surrounded by people egging him on and telling him he could win the election.

Eleven years later, I am coming to doubt the advice I gave. Even though it cost him the election (though not necessarily the referendum after that, or the election after the referendum and the one after that), I have come to realise that there is more courage in facing up to a challenge, whatever the consequences, than in hiding in a corner and expecting the inevitable.

I have come to the conclusion that Prime Minister Gonzi has, without knowing, chosen to act on my advice of 11 years ago, when I am not so sure that is the correct advice.

Ever since he won by the skin of his teeth, Dr Gonzi has been acting big, but in reality all know he is being kept there on sufferance. The one-seat majority is a constant threat hanging like a Damocles’ sword above his head.

Perhaps any other man but Dr Gonzi would have appointed all his parliamentary group ministers, even the Castile cat if need be, so long as everybody was happy. Instead, he went for a tight Cabinet and left out people who, rightly or wrongly, thought they should have been entrusted with ministerial responsibility.

Hence the continuing anger, the sniping, the undermining, which has bedevilled this government ever since.

It should now be amply clear this is not working, not working at all. Dr Gonzi insists that choosing Cabinet is a prime minister’s exclusive prerogative, which is as all books on constitutional theory say. But the question, after 18 months into his second term is, whether a one-seat majority can survive the tests of time and office with an underlying perception, rightly or wrongly, that the Prime Minister only chose those he was comfortable working with and therefore those he left out were those he did not really feel he should trust with office.

This is not exactly so. More about that soon.

Dr Gonzi did not come into office in the normal way most of his colleagues, his predecessor too, did. He came out of the lift at some high storey, through Catholic Action and of course through his ability and integrity. Not for him the cursus through the party’s district committees, (today we would add the local councils), the parliamentary backbench, and so on.

Had he done so, as most of his present and past MPs could tell him, he would have understood one basic lesson in politics: Both the Nationalist Party and the Labour Party are broad churches: they include strange, very strange, bed fellows. Politics in Malta, as we all know, is primarily tribal. It would be fine if it were simply an issue of values, but then what values really distinguish one side from the other? It is really a question of choosing one set of faces over the other and then each set competing as to who would be most suited to help me, my family, whenever we need them, rather than this rigmarole of their coming to knock on doors only at election time

One of the vices that beset Maltese politics is that each side, or rather, especially when in Opposition, claim the other side is corrupt, and yes, there are bad apples on either side. But this game of finger-pointing is now bedevilling politics and giving politicians all and everywhere a bad name, when most are not bad at all and most act honourably; well, most of the time.

Choosing to run a tight ship may have been the result of Dr Gonzi’s working habits, which we all have. He may be (I know I am) simply unable to deal with a large group where people may not all have his same principles and values and methods of work. The impression one gets from the choice of the present Cabinet is that he must have been pretty uncomfortable with the Cabinet he inherited from his predecessor, which could explain how he jettisoned them as soon as he could. In which case, the choice post 2008 election, derived from his personality limitations rather than, as is the most current explanation for it, from an underlying suspicion that those he left out are simply not good for office.

This has brought about two effects. On the one hand, he has the most disgruntled, angry, sullen, fractious, backbench in recent political history, as people are still smarting, and worse, from the snub and all it implies. People might not, possibly will not, bring down the government (about this, more soon) but they may, they ARE, ready to bring the government to defeat on some not substantial issue just to show how angry they are angry and have not forgotten.

On the other hand, it is now amply clear that even the small team handpicked after the election is not working well. Had it worked, even given that the backbench is angry, people would still see the government delivering. But it’s not – does anyone need me to list? People all around are giving more and more credence to the backbench sully members even though all the stops of the spin machine are full out and working full-time.

This, I say, obviously with no real effective evidence to prove me right, could have been otherwise, can, pace prime ministerial prerogative, be otherwise.

But then, and this is what I had been referring to earlier, there is now, or what appears to be, something else: a quite deliberate attempt, drip after bloody drip, to pull the government down. People are already betting on a PN defeat and its aftermath.

That is why I say it’s Mintoff again. Either Dr Gonzi does a Dr Sant and rushes headfirst into the fray, or else... Or else... perhaps continue to suffer. I hear that for him not to have blown a fuse when he met his backbench after the June MEP elections shows a strong constitution. But to face the continuous drip, drip, drip of destructive criticism and to know that there is nothing one can do about it, to know there are people out there whose only aim is to bring you down and all your government and party on top of you like a pack of cards – that is something one would not wish his worst enemy.

Yes, there is so much Dr Gonzi could or should do. Perhaps the very first is to seek an even wider agreement with the people on his backbench. Not all people are agreeable to all other people: a politician should be the first to admit this. But one has to learn to live and work with people one finds distasteful (ask Eddie how he could get along with Berlusconi).

Then he has to learn to give – on issues that are not core issues, on issues where compromise may mean much.

Then he has to stop those around him from:

Not continuing to do so many mistakes;

From thinking the less they are the more power they can enjoy.

But deep down, and when all is said and done, it may be that the present moment asks of him to show leadership and to openly challenge those who aim at unseating him.

Or else suffer in silence until the election result brings about perpetual peace.

Old, old Parliament

Not many have the opportunity to sit on one of the MP seats in Parliament.

I know they have held student sessions there and some other sessions with an NGO or two. But it was only last week that, taking part in the French Ambassador’s genial creation Ulysses 2009, I actually sat on a backbench seat.

Boy, oh boy, how tawdry it looks from up close and near. The benches are uncomfortable (no wonder there is usually no one sitting on them) and without the facilities we are used to (no plug points, no Internet connections).

And what about the décor: the cheap wooden surroundings, the neon tubes above one’s head, the government-issue furniture.

When the time comes, I hope that MPs will unanimously vote to get a House that is more suited to the times and its business than this monstrosity.

While, I repeat, the initiative was brilliant, as was the whole idea of using the House of Representatives in the mornings for such high-powered conferences, I was equally aghast to see that the newly-restored Cappella Paladini, with no door at all, was being used to store coffee and biscuits for the coffee breaks.

Missing

The Church has come up with a long-gestation document on feasts. At long last.

I admit I only glanced through it, so perhaps my impression is inexact.

It would seem the document was more about what the Church believes the government must do than otherwise.

There is one issue that I believe has been left out of the many discussions held. Circumstances change from one parish to the other. But I have noticed (I did it myself in my time too) that many parishes seem to budget more money for the feast than they actually collect for it. In other words, when the feast funds run out, they pour in money they would have collected for the parish’s normal religious needs.

This is completely wrong and must be stopped. If people want bands, fireworks, the lot, they can jolly well pay for them.