The news from the Nationalist Party stronghold of Sliema of Cyrus Engerer’s defection to the Labour Party stunned most people, on both the right and the left. That is hardly surprising. Love it or hate it, Malta’s political majority today is steadfastly hinged to the Centre, where a conglomeration of ideological colours has over the past two years been forming and cementing, then peaking smoothly during the divorce referendum campaign.
Is it a source of worry to the three effective political parties on the Island? It must be. But while the Labour Party, on the traditional left, has felt safe and secure in acknowledging people’s shift towards more down-to-earth and liberal overall policies, the governing Nationalist Party has chosen to push its head further down into the ground in the hope of ignoring and not even listening to what the winds of change are now not so gently whispering across the nation.
For the Alternattiva Demokratika Greens it is proving no less of a nightmare. For decades now they have been clamouring to be recognised as “the third force” in Maltese politics while, in the process, they have seen their electoral fortunes diminish rather than grow. Though many voters would love to have this third choice of ticket, they have not found in the AD the true grit and commitment they have seen in Joseph Muscat’s leadership of the progressive movement currently calling the stakes.
The Engerer event has confirmed one long-suspected reality: the ruling NP is caught in atrocious meltdown conditions not unlike those at the Fukushima Daiichi plant in Japan. Their well-trained “technicians” have been battling to stabilise one dissident reactor after the other, sometimes by recourse to bashful enticement with jobs, titles and honoraria, sometimes by sledgehammer tactics that belong to another century.
Now, rocked by the Engerer blast, internal and external watchdogs insist that while there is still no sign yet of a meltdown, a “melting of rods” is highly likely to be happening.
The metaphor is not exhausted too easily. Sparked by the 9.0-magnitude quake (the referendum result) and the subsequent tsunami (Engerer and Co., the Arriva fiasco), the crisis is now not only evident but openly discussed and analysed in village grocery shops, hair salons and band clubs.
Like Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano’s now famous quote “although we cannot directly check it, it’s highly likely happening”, government party henchmen continue to apply an outdated cooling system in the hope of avoiding the meltdown. Radiation levels, though, do not offer much hope. Exposure for too long a period of time can damage the stability of the rods and raise the risk of a meltdown. Is another critical event imminent?
Pressure will no doubt be released as we stumble down towards the next general election. The idea, as always, will be that of reducing the risk of a catastrophic explosion, but the NP vessel is cracked and could still release radioactive material into the political atmosphere.
Like nuclear safety officials, NP insiders will continue to insist that they do not have any indication of fuel currently melting, but critics from within – Arrigo, Pullicino Orlando, Debono, Farrugia et al – will also continue to cast doubt on the party’s classification of their Fukushima crisis. From level four it could easily go to level six, if it has not already done so.
They will tell them that “level four is a serious level”, and that higher than that could lead to complete devastation. We have been witnessing a very rare spectacle – Nationalists and Nationalist sympathisers taking on other Nationalists and Nationalist sympathisers. It is not exactly part of some democratic game being played at party level, but more of a “loser takes all” approach that threatens either meltdown or implosion, if not both.
While the battle to contain the resilient reactors continues, it would be daft for anyone to think it has been won or lost. The current Maltese political scenario begs recognition, not definition. So much has been achieved and so many have set up their varied tents on centrepoint that it will always be changing, taking shape, re-shaping, assembling and re-assembling.
Gonzi’s technicians will be working 24/7 to stop the meltdown. They will stop at nothing. There will be as much demonisation as there will be underhand tactics in use, but there will also be more handouts, new opportunities, new promotions, new titles, tax amnesties and tax amnesia reminiscent of 2008, possibly spearheaded, once again, by a suddenly reformed dissident.
Malta’s face is, at this moment in time, scarred all over by the many infrastructural and embellishment projects being undertaken, with polling day the only real destination, from Bormla and Birgu to Valletta and Ċirkewwa – place names that ironically remind one of public transport routes that have gone haywire overnight.
While the public transport bubble has burst loudly and crudely in that same face, so could the new parliament and the new theatre, the new City non-Gate and the new Dock No.1 projects that have been created on a mood swing of controversy and will be completed in a no less exasperating atmosphere of helplessness, the like of which has gripped and overwhelmed the Arriva brassheads during the past few weeks.
In these meltdown conditions, one can only hope there is no Greek tragedy lesson to be learned or experienced. The mythical EU gods would do well to understand that what is OK by them today has to be OK by them tomorrow. That is not, sadly, how they played it with Athens. And that’s certainly not cricket, or whichever sport they prefer in Brussels.