Predictably, the newspapers last Sunday and on many other days were inundated with comment pieces about the defection of Marisa Micallef from the Nationalist to the Labour camp. It was bound to happen. It is not common for a pro-Nationalist columnist and a former PN candidate to become an adviser to Joseph Muscat and the Labour Party.
No, I will not be boring you with trying to analyse the reasons that led her to defect – because, yes, it is a defection. Most other columnists have spoken about a hefty salary, personal reasons and a knee-jerk reaction after she was refused a job with the government as the cause of her move.
What I will say is that Marisa – having been her editor for four years and having had many phone conversations with her, I find it strange to call her Ms Micallef – has unfortunately already been used by her new leader as a pawn in his political game.
This is because I believe that the biggest news was not Marisa’s defection, but what happened the next day, when it became known that Jason Micallef was stepping down from the position of PL secretary-general.
Yet, the fact that Marisa’s stunt was cleverly planted in Sunday newspapers and that the removal of Jason Micallef happened a day later, on a Monday night when the focus was still on Marisa and Parliament was holding its first session after the summer recess, makes me think that Dr Muscat was playing games.
And, in a way, he succeeded in shifting the discussion to where he wanted it to be in order to hide what was, for me, a more significant event. As I said, Marisa’s move is not as important as the one concerning Jason – in his case I am using the first name so as not to risk mixing up one Micallef with another – but the media chose to hit on Marisa mostly, while Jason’s changing of roles was more or less ignored.
Marisa came in handy for Joseph Muscat to use her as a decoy. She was placed on the frontline while the Labour Party announced its more noteworthy piece of news, and as such hid it behind Marisa. I do not know whether she was aware of Joseph Muscat’s intentions, but it is clear that the PL is already playing games with her. It was not a coincidence that barely 24 hours separated the two announcements. Marisa will have to learn that this is how Labour works.
Jason was the man many Labourites blamed for the defeat in the last election. Yet he had managed to secure his position as PL secretary-general even after Alfred Sant resigned and Joseph Muscat took his place. It has now been decided that Jason will give up his position in the party administration to take up the post of head of the party’s media.
Whether he will be less or more harmful to his own party in his new position remains to be seen. As secretary-general, he had many fingers in the party’s administration pie, but as chief of the party’s media, he can have a more direct influence on the party faithful.
It is a known fact that One News, in spite of party-commissioned reports that suggested a milder line in its presentation of news, continues to be too one-sided, too geared up towards the party diehards and too far away from objectivity.
With a hardliner such as Jason at the helm, it is hard to imagine that things will change for the better.
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With the benefit of hindsight, I think that it would have been better for the Nationalist Party to have lost the 2008 election.
Let me explain.
After having spent 20 of the last 22 years in government, the party needs the time to look within and regroup. In government, it does not have the time to sort out the internal difficulties that have emerged over the years, and in particular in the last 18 months – most of them as a result of decisions that have affected individuals who are not too happy with the situation.
If it had lost, the party would have had time to change its internal administration – as it has done – without having to simultaneously focus on running the country. It would have given the party the opportunity to settle down and be in a much stronger position when the 2013 election comes up.
Secondly, the recession that the country is facing because of the international crisis would have been experienced under a Labour administration. The current circumstances are not beneficial to any government, and no matter what the PN does, the tough obstacles that we are facing and will continue to face will have a negative effect on how people regard their government.
Had it lost the 2008 election, it would have been much easier for the PN to win the next one. As things now stand, that’s almost impossible.
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It’s funny that One TV, where cost of living increases get a mention every day as the Labour Party tries to make political gain from added expenses for the consumer, was the first station to raise the cost of SMSs sent for participation in programmes broadcast. It happened on Bongu Bundy, or whatever it’s called, where the cost of an SMS is now EUR1.16. That’s a big jump, especially for a station that supposedly defends the “poor” workers.
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