The government and the PN seem to have been so upset and unprepared for the possibility of losing their single seat majority in Parliament that they have lost all sense of logic and seem to have learnt nothing from Alfred Sant’s experience in 1998. This is surprising given that they had warning signals flashing for several months.
They should have learnt that in circumstances like these, the least said in public the better and that restoration of the majority stands a better chance through direct encounters away from the cameras and reporters’ note pads, than through gladiatorial pronouncements issued for public consumption.
I have never seen the Prime Minister giving such a poor performance as he did on Xarabank on Friday 6 January when the issue blew up in public after the Cabinet reshuffle.
His argument that the country needs stability and therefore he would not be seeking a vote of confidence in Parliament is an absolute non sequitur. There can be no question about the need for stability, but such stability cannot come by continuing to govern without validating the executive’s parliamentary mandate when it is, in the best of circumstances, highly improbable that such parliamentary support still exists. It is the very uncertainty about the existence of a parliamentary majority that creates instability and the earlier the issue is resolved one way or the other, the better for everyone and for the national interest.
The Prime Minister’s argument that because there are important EU meetings scheduled for the coming weeks we should practically suspend the rules of democracy is nothing short of condensed arrogance, to the point that it seems to be arguing that there is no one else who can represent Malta at such meetings other than Dr Gonzi.
Even more arrogant is the PN’s attack on the Opposition in general and its leader in particular, as if the Opposition is responsible for their problems in Parliament. The PN stooped as low as claiming that Dr Muscat was “bowing to extremists within his party and seeking a general election even though this was not in the national interest”.
That a general election is not in the national interest is a gratuitous assertion. What is surely not in the national interest is having government persist in executive authority without commanding a parliamentary majority. In such circumstances, a general election would be very much in the national interest as a means to restore democratic stability. This unless the PN imply that stability depends on their being in government and that if the PL were to win a democratic mandate to govern, they (PN) would still have the means, through their network with other cells of power in society outside politics, to destabilise a democratically elected Labour government.
The Leader of the Opposition has so far reacted with wise caution. The Speaker’s decision not to convene Parliament early was accepted gracefully. He has also wisely counselled the government to test its majority mandate in Parliament and warned that undue procrastination would lead to instability. In such circumstances, the Opposition will be left with no alternative but to settle the issue by demanding a vote of no confidence.
Or is the PN expecting Labour to support it in Parliament to restore its lost majority? What goes round comes around even if it takes 13 years. In 1998, the PN Opposition did all it could to foment trouble within Labour’s parliamentary ranks to negate a democratically elected government of its majority and force it to an early election when it had executed only one-third of the legislative term. This in spite of the fact that Labour had obtained a majority, which should have produced a three-seat margin rather than the one Mintoff-dependent seat it actually got.
The PN have executed three quarters of their legislative term for which it received a popular vote majority of only one half a parliamentary seat. However, as parliamentary seats, unlike shoe sizes, don’t come in halves they got an overstated majority of one parliamentary seat. Furthermore, this majority is not being compromised by a senile 82-year-old at the end of his political career and whom the PN had opposed for nearly half a century, but by a young MP who was never criticised by PL and who is standing by his views, even if in the process he is sacrificing a promising political career.
In all this there is the insulting attitude, which exists even at PN grass roots level, that the blues have a god-given right to govern this country and that the reds are an inferior race, children of a lesser god, incapable of taking this country forward and whose electoral wins should remain at the level of local and European Parliament elections.
Logic seems to have taken its leave even at the Ministry of Finance. In order to be released from the EU discipline for Excessive Deficit Procedures (EDP) resulting from EU review of its 2012 Budget, it issued a dry statement, on the same Cabinet re-shuffle day, declaring that it had agreed to shave off 0.59% of the GDP from the Budget expenditure that Malta parliament had approved before the Christmas recess. 0.59 per cent does not look like much until one explains that really it amounts to €40 million, which suddenly the government has found it can do without.
This raises more questions than it answers. The budget for 2012 projected a deficit of 2.3 per cent of GDP. This is well within the three per cent limit that triggers an EDP. So if the EU forced the government’s hand to shave off 0.59 per cent, it means that the EU concluded that in its judgement the 2.3 per cent calculated deficit was unrealistic and that it would have been nearer to 3.59 per cent. This is a difference of €87 million, which could have resulted either because economic growth was considered too optimistic or because budgetary revenue was considered unrealistically high, or a bit of both.
Following the whole process to have the Budget approved by Parliament, one would expect that such a major change coming so soon should be accompanied by an explanation as to why it was considered necessary and on which votes will the expenditure axe fall. Nothing of the sort! The press release simply states that the major part of the cuts will come from Programmes and Initiatives (0.21 per cent) and Government Entities (0.17 per cent).
Unless one assumes we are all morons and should accept the government’s outbursts uncritically, we deserve a more detailed explanation.
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