As well as to how much he is prepared to bow to the parliamentary majority that he has lost on this particular issue. Losing a vote on the divorce issue in Parliament will not spell the downfall of the Gonzi government but it nevertheless remains a hurdle he would like to avoid facing at all costs.
He is fully aware that it will further project the same aura of instability that characterised his government when faced with other burning issues like the St John’s Co-Cathedral saga among many others.
Ultimately Gonzi has his own credibility on the line. And the way he has been running scared these last few days made it evident to one and all that he has long lost his credibility as well as the whole plot.
His sole objective is to render the mere notion of divorce as unpalatable and unacceptable as possible. One need not look far beyond his latest letter to Joseph Muscat on how he proposed rephrasing the pivotal referendum question to figure that out. His claim that sugared or not, the referendum question will still be for or against non-binding marriage is simplistic and simple-minded – betraying the by now customary insensitivity that has come to dominate our Prime Minister’s mindset.
In trying to pre-empt the unified pro-referendum stance adopted by the PL parliamentary group Monday week in its entirety – and also by secret ballot (something many newspapers conveniently chose to ignore) – Gonzi chose to run roughshod over the decision taken against divorce by his party the previous Saturday – less than 48 hours before – at the expense of irking the hardliners in his own ranks.
At the same time he rankled further the liberal voters – or rather what is left of them – within his party ranks after he had previously made it so obvious that he would first promote a discussion and vote on the Private Member’s Bill before even considering allowing the country to go for a referendum on this burning issue.
Many people I know have their serious doubts about Austin Gatt’s true motivation so much so that some wagging tongues have been arguing that Gatt might (I repeat ‘might’ to be politically correct) be using this whole divorce saga to show one and all that he is holding Gonzi in his clutches like a pawn. Whatever his motivations might be I cannot blame him for being reportedly furious at Gonzi’s mother of all U-turns Monday week when he decided to literally push aside, shelve and do the right opposite of what had been agreed – by a mere show of hands – to hold a vote in parliament which would have virtually destroyed all chances of a referendum at all. That Gonzi then chose to go for a simplistic wording on the referendum issue is nothing but a sweetener intended to mitigate the bitterness of such PN hardliners.
The same inconsistency was evident in Parliament last Wednesday.
One moment the PM was reported to have refrained from giving any guarantees on when to discuss Labour’s motion which is likely to evidently win the support of at least two Nationalist backbench MPs. Then something snapped.
Mr Speaker clamped down on Labour’s attempts to force a vote on the divorce issue. So far ‘so good’.
But the moment Gonzi realised that the PL was giving notice of contesting the Speaker’s decision, Gonzi suddenly realised that once again he ran the risk of losing a vote in Parliament.
This immediately forced Gonzi to make recourse to yet another knee jerk reaction and U-turn where by early evening, only hours after the marathon parliamentary sitting drew to an end, Gonzi changed tack once again and claimed that he was ready to discuss the referendum motion next week after all.
It soon became evident that he would once again try and move the goalposts for his own convenience. This jars with his earlier claim that it was impossible to commit to discuss the divorce issue this week since he had many parliamentary group members travelling abroad.
It is pointless for the PN leaning media to quote Joseph Muscat out of context on the referendum issue. He had always made it clear that since none of the parties presently represented in Parliament had any mandate to go for divorce, he had pegged it all on securing a mandate to push a Private Member’s Bill – based on a free vote – in the next term if he manages to win the public confidence to govern the country.
It takes some cheek for the PN to claim that Joseph Muscat made a U-turn on the referendum issue when Lawrence Gonzi must have changed tack some four times within less than 20 days on the same issue.
No blood might have been spilled in the process, and I am sure that it will not, but ironically with Gonzi’s U-turns reaching an all time low Monday week, I could but not help thinking that since this mega U-turn took place on none other than St Valentine’s Day, Lawrence Gonzi resorted to a real St Valentine’s Day (Political) Massacre – something that made me recall the by now famous or rather infamous prohibition era conflict.
Meanwhile I am confident that in the next days even more U-turns are likely to follow. Read on and monitor diligently.
All I can say at this juncture is that through his gross and crass insensitivity Gonzi has only managed to make a bad situation even worse. By showing that he wanted to reduce such a complex issue as the divorce issue to a YES/NO question as if we were all watching in the comfort of our homes a stereotyped Media Set TV quiz.
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Leo Brincat is the Shadow Minister for the Environment, Sustainable Development & Climate Change