Gavin Gulia seems quite coy about the ‘Nationalist troubles’ (A Parliamentary group in recession, TMID, 19 October) while completely ignoring what is happening within his own party.

He correctly mentioned the difficulties a leader faces when forming a Cabinet as Alfred Sant did 13 years ago. All elected members of the government are pretenders to a Cabinet post and naturally, there are those who feel sore at being left out. Others may not be in complete sync with the Party when certain policies are formulated. But is that not a necessary ingredient of democracy, when sometimes brakes are applied in order to re-examine proposed laws and, eventually, obtaining the widest consensus within the Parliamentary group?

The Labour Party has been out of office for so long that their hope of the present government hitting the rocks is at all time high. In the meantime Nationalist supporters, including yours truly, fervently hope that the ‘rebels’ within the Parliamentary group will not do a ‘Mintoff’ and jeopardise the administration. Listening to three of the not-so-happy group on a recent TV show, they seem to have given the assurance that they will do nothing of the sort. However, at the same time, their constituents are taking notes, forming appropriate opinions as to the correctness of their actions, especially if the three impede the ability of the government to go forward with necessary reforms and legislation. With the electoral process in place now, with multiple candidates of the same party contesting the same district, it is easy to shift one’s preference to another candidate who is deemed to be more faithful to the party.

The whole Parliamentary group seems to feel that there is an inadequate level of consultancy and furthermore some feel that the Prime Minister is not communicating enough with them. On the other hand, all three appearing on Bondi+ claimed that they have a good relationship with Dr Gonzi and two out of three claimed that they had spoken to him two or three hours before the live programme! Who are we then to believe, the three gentlemen or the Labour Party spin?

Going to the Labour Party scene, a party which constantly boasts of perfect unity, one finds so many cracks that gallons of super glue are needed to keep it in one piece. These cracks started to appear even before the ‘new’ leader was elected, by a ‘slam-the-door campaign on George Abela, effectively defeating his attempt at becoming leader. The then Secretary General made little attempts at hiding his antipathy towards Dr Abela. More recently, the Secretary General became the ‘former Secretary General’ when he was removed from his position to which he was elected by some 900 delegates, and moved sideways to the media sector of the party! What right did the party’s administration have to overrule the delegates? Jason Micallef was removed – not resigned. But why the surprise? Joseph Muscat must have been livid when Jason was re-elected with an increased majority in the last General Meeting after Mr Micallef was given no small fault at the PL’s loss of the last election! Under the present leadership, some old factions were dismantled but more seem to be cropping up with even more unhappy faces joining forces.

Gavin Gulia would have little comment about the hiring of a CEO when, I believe, such matters should be approved by the delegates according to the party’s statute, especially when such a post is a paid position. He had no comment about the former SG accusing the party President of lying on Dissett. The Labour Party group could very well be united but there are many unhappy people within the party administration which represents the fulcrum around which much of the party fundamentals ‘revolve’. I was tempted to use the word ‘spin’ rather than ‘revolve’ because these days the Labour Party’s aim is to spin events to their political advantage in order to keep its apologists’ hopes, high.

My final comment is that previous Nationalist governments with a slim majority survived a full term and pressed forward with progressive legislation and so will this one. The same could not be said about the Labour party which, when last entrusted with governing, survived a mere 22 months.

Joe Martinelli

London, Ontario

Canada