Irrespective of one’s particular views on the political standoff that is now well and truly threatening to unseat the government, one must concede that the Prime Minister must have nerves of steel.
Out of sheer stubbornness or an appreciation of the bigger picture, he has not yielded so much as an inch of ground to his MP Franco Debono, at least not since he split the justice and home affairs ministry as per one of the early demands of the backbencher.
Debono is still holding the government and its one seat parliamentary majority to ransom, and he will continue to do so until the issues he has highlighted as affecting the home affairs and justice portfolios are ironed out through debates on his or the opposition’s motions on the matter.
If they are not, he has threatened to bring down the government at the next opportunity.
That next opportunity will present itself on 9 May, the date the Prime Minister has set for the vote on the crucial Budget Implementation Bill – a money bill that will, if lost, force the hand of the Prime Minister into calling an early election. In so doing, the Prime Minister has effectively dismissed Debono’s latest demand that the justice and home affairs motions are debated first.
Perhaps the Prime Minister is now putting into practice the credo of not negotiating with ‘terrorists’, or perhaps he is simply unwilling to let one of his ministers’ heads roll because one of his MPs is demanding it. Perhaps it is a case of simply being unwilling to show weakness in the face of a threat, or to cave in under pressure.
Of these three options, our opinion leans toward the latter. Were the Prime Minister to bend to the will of his MP’s multi-faceted demands for reform with a gun pressed to his head, not only would his credibility as the leader of his party find itself on a very slippery slope indeed, but so would his very credibility as Prime Minister of this country. And if he were to do that once, there would be no telling where it would end.
After months of dillydallying, matters will now come to a head next month thanks to the deadlines attached to the Budget Implementation Act, a money bill that, if lost, would set the ball rolling toward an inevitable and early general election.
At any rate, the Prime Minister on Tuesday, following consultations with his parliamentary group, announced that the date the all-determining vote would be taken was to be 9 May. That date was not chosen by coincidence.
That date marks the 25th anniversary of the Nationalist Party’s 1987 electoral victory after 16 long years in opposition, and the beginning of the party’s electoral dominance it has secured, with the notable exception of 1996-1998.
Putting aside his demand for the justice and home affairs debate to precede that of the budget implementation bill, it would be very difficult for Debono to vote in favour of the budget of a ministry in whose stewardship he has no faith.
On the other hand, it would also be very difficult for Debono to vote against a motion calling for that minister’s resignation, considering all that has been said and done in that respect over recent months.
If defeated on a money bill, the Prime Minster would be technically obliged to request Parliament to be dissolved and an early election called. In the second, some would argue that a loss of a confidence in a minster would morally oblige him to call an election.
Weighing these two options, the Prime Minister has put the ball squarely in Debono’s court, he has called his bluff and has gone straight for the money bill. Whether this was the wisest course of action, only time will tell.
Until then, the longevity of the current legislature is stuck between the rock that is the Prime Minister’s refusal to cave in to demands from his backbench and the very hard place that is Franco Debono.