Dr Franco Debono has thrown his toys out of the pram in a fit of self-destructive pique. The Prime Minister appears to be in denial about his ability to continue to govern effectively in a Parliament where he has lost his majority.
Watching this saga unfold has underlined yet again the difficulty any Prime Minister faces in governing with a one-seat majority. It also highlights the grey area in a democracy between an individual Member of Parliament’s responsibilities to his constituents, loyalty to his party, personal conscience and, ultimately, his paramount responsibility for the good governance of his country.
To get an inkling of what has caused this political implosion we have to go back to first principles: specifically, what is the role of a Member of Parliament and how has it been interpreted (or, as some might suggest, traduced) in this case?
Although it may be thought that the first responsibility of a Member of Parliament is to pursue the grievances of his constituents and to highlight their needs through direct access to ministers, under our system (and the Westminster model generally) party loyalty and loyalty to the party whip is seen as the overriding duty. Certainly, to read the writings of Nationalist Party die-hards there can be little doubt about this.
By all accounts, Franco Debono is a good constituency MP, close to the concerns of his constituents as his interventions on the public transport debacle and the swingeing increases in the water and electricity rates attest. He is also clearly liked by his constituents for it is unlikely he would have displaced the outstanding Louis Galea in his district in the last election.
It is when we move into the area of party loyalty, personal ambition and conscience that the picture becomes murky. The Member of Parliament is meant to be the obedient servant of the party machine. He is expected to tramp into the division lobby voting for or against a subject on the say-so of the party whip. He is not expected to demur at the party line. Loyalty to the party is expected to trump all else.
But this – as we have seen throughout the term of this Parliament – becomes more difficult when the government holds only a one-seat majority. It is made far worse when the Prime Minister is faced – as he has been throughout this Parliament – by a sizeable minority of members who appear, for whatever reason, to be disaffected and dissatisfied with his leadership and whose aspirations and personal ambitions have not been fulfilled.
It can be seen, with hindsight, that the Prime Minister’s decision on winning the last election to create large ministries, and thus reduce the size of his Cabinet, did away at a stroke with the one weapon at his disposal to assuage MPs’ ambitions – and quite often, giant egos − to wield power as ministers. Every parliamentary foot-soldier dreams of holding a ministerial post rather than scurrying around at the bottom of the greasy pole. Government Members of Parliament want to be a part of the executive, not the legislature.
Personal ambition and a conviction that public service is their way of achieving it is what persuades most people to enter politics. If the number of ministers or parliamentary secretaries is so few as to make promotion chances too slim, ambitions are not met, egos are not massaged and frustration that others have been chosen over them is increased. The incessant rumblings of discontent from back-bench MPs that have blighted the Gonzi premiership over the last four years owe a lot to the feeling that either their talents or their contribution to the party had not been properly recognised.
In its simplest terms, a government needs continuously to ensure that it is carrying its parliamentary supporters with it, both on the broad direction of government and on specific policies. When its majority is wafer-thin – as it almost invariably is in Malta – this imperative is obviously greater. There is a constant process of representation and negotiation between ministers and their parliamentary supporters, especially on contentious issues. Back-room deals are struck and amendments to policy made. The Prime Minister’s efforts to assuage MPs’ desire for greater involvement in the machinery of government, and greater personal importance, by appointing Parliamentary Assistants in every ministry has been one such example of this, and proved of limited effect – indeed, it has back-fired.
None more so than with Dr Franco Debono, whom the Prime Minister took to Castille as his own Personal Assistant, presumably on the basis of ‘holding your friends close, but your enemies even closer’. As a criminal lawyer, Franco Debono had long focused – justifiably − on improvements to the justice system. Many of his proposals made eminent good sense. His advocacy of splitting the Ministry of Home Affairs from Justice was clearly sensible and in line with what happens in most other democracies.
Under voluble pressure to do this, the Prime Minister succumbed. But his doing so has precipitated a storm created by the very person who was asking for the split to be done. This has inevitably raised questions not only about the sound judgement, as well as the psychological state, of Franco Debono, but also that his extraordinary reaction is due to extreme pique at not becoming a minister in the re-shuffle conducted by the Prime Minister.
It has to be said that the re-shuffle was botched. In an effort not to appear either to cave in to Franco Debono or to be critical of Minister Mifsud Bonnici’s handling of the Justice portfolio, the Prime Minister attempted to disguise the move as a more general re-structuring of Cabinet. For good measure, he also threw in the rescinding of the grossly unpopular ministerial pay rises, on which he had won a vote in Parliament only a few weeks ago. Not for the first time (think of his handling of the divorce debate − also precipitated by an individual Member of Parliament in his own party), the Prime Minister’s tactics and basic man-management have been found woefully wanting.
Dr Franco Debono is not the first Member of Parliament, and will not be the last, to find himself at odds with his party and his government. Party discipline, party loyalty and a belief in the party’s cause are normally sufficient to keep MPs on board. But these intrinsic qualities must be constantly managed through a combination of good leadership, good internal communications and man-management − including the prospect of personal promotion − if they are to succeed. They cannot be achieved through appeasement.
In this case, they have clearly failed. The country now faces a crisis at the very time when government stability in the face of the continuing eurozone uncertainty and looming recession should be paramount. A general election is only weeks away and, on current form unless Franco Debono succumbs to pressure to resign his seat, an untried and inexperienced government stands in the wings waiting to take up the reins of power.
It is doubtful that either Franco Debono or the Prime Minister envisaged that their misjudgements would lead to this outcome.