There is one question fellow MPs on the other side of the political divide prefer to dodge

Beyond the great national debate taking place about whether the Opposition’s motion of no-confidence failed, or rather irreparably damaged the government’s ability to transmit a sense of stability to the nation, all nationalist MPs I have had the honour of crossing swords with during the last few weeks were all unable to declare that they are confident that henceforth government will be able to pass ordinary legislation and money bills through parliament.

On the one hand they speak as if the motion has failed and that the Prime Minister has a license to continue governing. But on the other they cannot be bullish about their parliamentary majority any longer and they are more conspicuous by their silence about the future than about their resilience to keep hanging on. There is doubtlessly a sense of distrust in parliament and the more they stay away from it the better they feel. The problem is that they cannot do without it.

The truth is that legally and constitutionally speaking this government can carry on chugging on for the rest of this legislature’s life, but the country has most definitely lost the stability and certainty that it deserves. The question facing the Prime Minister is whether he is in a position to legislate. He cannot dodge the question for too long as business is already grinding to a halt.

Evidently the Government is trying to buy time to try to restore both stability and certainty to end the crisis, but to do that it will need to win the trust and confidence of Dr Franco Debono again. As long as Dr Debono carries on demanding that heads roll, including the Prime Minister’s, who has been described as someone he cannot work with, and as long as the Prime Minister carries on defying him by promoting ministers Dr Debono most clearly despises, then the Government’s parliamentary majority will remain at stake, whether they like it or not.

The reasons being bandied about for why Dr Debono is behaving so ruthlessly are totally irrelevant to the question of stability. They have described Dr Debono as a man obsessively ambitious, with an insatiable greed for position and power, or even worse that he is an ambulant lunatic. But even if, for argument’s sake, he is, (and he is neither one nor the other), the question of stability remains. Trying to determine the man’s pysche is not a solution to the current crisis. Actually it can only escalate the crisis by painting Dr Debono in a corner.

I think that the Prime Minister has come to terms with this reality and instead of bulldozing Dr Debono with requests for his resignation he is now trying to woo him back into the fold. That Dr Gonzi is a schemer is no revelation, but nor is Dr Debono a hopeless yielder. He is still sticking to his guns, and so the crises persists.

After a rather rowdy January there is now a relative calm. While a fortnight ago Dr Debono was chasing the Prime Minister, the government and the nationalist party relentlessly, taking out press statements and calling press conferences with no repreive, there are now relatively broad intervals of silence between one broadside and the other.

Dr Debono is keeping everyone guessing about what his next step will be. For the optimistic nationalist this can be a sign of better things to come. But to the realist this is no truce. The fact is that the country is still living a crisis. That the nationalist party has been dragged into a leadership contest at a time when another economic recession is looming on the horizon demonstrates how serious the situation has become and how much this country deserves stability and certainty at this time. If the government cannot guarantee its parliamentary majority in the short term it will have to call an election.

Let’s wait for the next big bill in Parliament. This might only be the eye of the storm.

Dr Gulia is the Opposition’s Main Spokesman for Tourism and Air Malta