There was nothing that a sea-going captain in the days of sail dreaded more than mutiny. Sea voyages were slow and sailing conditions highly dangerous. The brutal discipline needed to make men climb up masts in a howling gale to reef huge sheets of canvas made dissent an ever present possibility. Captains used to rack their brains on how to keep crews gainfully employed in order to take their minds off their conditions of service.
This is very similar to the position of the government backbencher today. In my time, an MP was allowed, even encouraged, to enhance his district and serve his constituents. I pestered ministers and government departments to give Zabbar a housing estate, decent roads, a school and greenhouses to the local farmers. True, I was working in the interests of the PN, and had been selected by the party as one of their representatives for the district, but the fact that with each election I increased my majority for the party in an area where the PN had been pounded into the ground was entirely due to the hard work that I and my team had put into the effort of garnering votes. That made me responsible both to the votes and to the party I had either consolidated or won over.
All this has nowadays been usurped by the local councils. MPs still have work to do but district work has diminished a lot with the result that MPs now find time weighing on their hands, a situation most political captains need to avoid. It is not as if there is nothing to do. Malta is now a member of a huge union with an extremely complicated operational system. It takes time to master it and even more time to make an impact. The fact that we are an island and an MP cannot take a train or travel by car to meetings on the continent does not make the situation any easier.
It is however a matter of tremendous importance that a political party finds time to educate its MPs to change their district or local lenses into glasses that help them see further than the traditional parochial boundaries. It is for that reason that in our electoral manifesto, Azzjoni Nazzjonali had urged changes to the electoral system by reducing, among other things, the number of districts, thus creating a wider area for candidates to contest which would force them to rise above mere clientelism. We had also urged for the creation of a research office to aid MPs. The PN too promised that but so far it has not been forthcoming.
Our MPs, like their counterparts in most European countries, are part-timers and it is right that they should be so. It is right for an MP to have to work hard for his bread and butter otherwise he will grow completely insensitive to the needs of the people whose interests he represents. But in our electoral manifesto we also suggested that MPs should be given a choice of becoming full-time members of parliament, for today not all MPs are self-employed. This, in my view, has not brought the country much benefit, for an MP whose job depends almost entirely on party favour will find it very difficult to buck the official trend. His vulnerability is certainly no asset to his party except to those who believe that in Malta we should have party lists and then it will be up to the party officials to choose who to represent the party. This idea had been mooted in my time as the answer to discipline the rank and file.
It would be a sad day when all opposition inside a political party is wiped out. Dissent on the part of the government’s MPs is no bad thing as it forces the government to keep awake. The important thing is that dissent should be limited to matters of principle and not financial issues which would involve the resignation of the government. Since power, especially long spells of power, tends to cut off leaders from the human life around them which they start taking for granted, there is no better wake-up call than their own backbenchers showing dissent knowing that it will not bring down the government. It is a democratic way by which a backbencher can express his feelings while remaining true to his political beliefs.
It would need a very charismatic leader to reward the citizens of Malta with such a democratically wrapped gift. Here you are expected to remain, as we have been told, “loyal” for life. The word loyalty needs to be redefined of course. It certainly shouldn’t mean calling a retired civil servant “gakbin” because in retirement he had given advice to the opposition. It shouldn’t imply a threat to a backbencher’s career because, on finding all corridors barred, s/he dares to declare unhappiness in public.
One of the reasons why we, at Azzjoni Nazzjonali, had proposed the downsizing of parliament was precisely not to have idle MPs with little to do except complain. If the main political parties cannot motivate all their backbenchers to grow and mature in responsible work, that is partly because there are too many of them.
I repeat that with the advent of the Lisbon Treaty and the growing push towards a stronger EU voice, more and more parliaments are going to end up managers of the decisions reached in Brussels, decisions in which our representatives would have played an active and intelligent part. The EU has created a new way of doing politics, one that is still entirely alien to Malta where we cling to our simple formula of having two sides forever shooting at each other and perish the thought of anyone ever trying to reach a consensus with the opposition. In European eyes that makes us an extremely primitive society, similar to those Mediterranean communities where the vendetta and lifelong hostility is looked upon as a sign of a manhood with “balls”, or as somebody put it “taking it on the chin” and then grinning all the way to London.
It is time for a system change. Backbenchers should be utilised, help to grow and mature, helped to acquire that expertise that will be needed when, in their time, they become the managers of the island. Limiting power to a small clique is the best way of ensuring that when squalls come, as they will, the captain will find that a grudging crew will not respond with dedication either to his commands or to his leadership.
Dr Josie Muscat is leader Azzjoni Nazzjonali