Not only does Lawrence Gonzi appear tired, but desperate as well.
Having suffered almost a year of indignities in Parliament, he went on to announce one of the longest electoral campaigns we have had. Merely to be able to say ‘I did the whole term’.
He is suffering for it, now. And with him, Malta is suffering more.
Dr Gonzi made an unforgiveable faux pas this week, and offended a major ally in Brussels and the Mediterranean, an ally who has helped Malta. He has potentially made an enemy of the President of France, Francois Hollande, and we could suffer for it.
The Prime Minister has ridiculed himself and his party with some his utterances, he has shown an unChristian spirit in others, and a cruel streak in yet others.
Now he is showing himself to be a questionable leader of Malta, a cheap head of government. For how else can one describe someone who stoops to belittling in no unmistakable manner the head of a most friendly and proud country, which has helped Malta - and doing so without any justification, merely to score a political point which was not even worth making in the first place?
I need not repeat what Dr Gonzi said about M. Hollande. Those wanting to know should read The Times’ page 6 of last Wednesday.
Dr Gonzi is showing himself to be unworthy of running Malta. His gratuitous insult was uttered when the ink was not yet dry in President Hollande’s signature to the EU package which Dr Gonzi has been boasting about – the €1.2 billion the PN leader has bragged about getting from Brussels.
In my journalism days I have extensively reported Dom Mintoff, Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici, Eddie Fenech Adami and Alfred Sant, in and out of Parliament. Not one of them ever behaved so. Dom Mintoff was strong against Col Gaddafi when Malta and Libya quarrelled over oil exploration, but there was a reason. And what Mintoff said was not meant to insult, it aimed only to show Malta’s anger at Libya’s strong-arm tactics.
In the case of Dr Gonzi’s insult, it was conveyed gratuitously, though France has helped Malta. We have offended a proud ally and Dr Gonzi should apologise to France.
I wonder whether Joseph Muscat will suffer repercussions for it. I wonder if he himself will have to apologise to the Elysee Palace for this blunder.
The national day issue
Let me move on. As I see it, it will be Joseph Muscat in Castile next month. And with Joseph Muscat in power, as all indicators show he will be, we will see an end to the silly national day issue, in which we have so many national days.
21 September will be one of our national days. To me, the other should be 31 March. 8 September and Republic Day may be given some form of special significance, they deserve it, but 21 September and 31 March should be the national days, as I see it.
In the first George Borg Olivier ventured into political independence but to a large extent remained in the grasp of the colonial power.
In the second Dom Mintoff shed off the strong remains of colonialism, and took the more highly risky path to economic independence, at the head of a country that had no resources. Gone would be the days of exploiting Malta’s geographical and military significance.
Other countries foundered trying such a path, but Mintoff’s belief in the abilities of his countrymen was fully justified, as it turned out. He steered his ship unerringly.
The national day issue will be settled because, I think, Joseph Muscat is sincere in his intentions, and is seen to be so. He will make sincere efforts to reach agreement. It is time for such an agreement. And Joseph Muscat is the right man, here at the right time for that.
He speaks warmly of Independence Day. Anyone who heard him speak of 21 September last Sunday, when the Labour Party held its mass meeting along 21 September Avenue in Naxxar, will have seen how genuine he is in his intentions.
It did not stick in his gullet to refer to Independence Day, which he did several times. Next year Malta will be celebrating the 50th anniversary of independence, he pointed out, more than once, in a strong, warm voice, not in a squeak.
The Nationalists, conservatives that they are, cannot yet fully accept Freedom Day and Republic Day. In almost 25 years of government, they have organised just the barest official activities to mark those days.
They will change when they take the opposition benches. They will want to convey the image of a moderate party, try to daub themselves in some acceptable lustre. They will wear sheep’s clothing. They need to shed the image they have today of a corrupt, selfish and inept, power hungry clique. They have alienated many of their grassroots.
Joseph Muscat keeps referring to his desire to rid Malta of the tribal politics we have always had. He wants unity in the country. He promises to promote unity. We can argue on politics but not on blue and red, or red and blue, lines, which the PN wants to propagate. Those hearing Joseph Muscat speak are convinced he means what he says. That is the message he drives relentlessly. He never reacts to PN provocations, dirty as they are.
His campaign has been extraordinarily positive and clean. He fights the issues, not individuals, and fights clean. He seeks answers to the questions continually surfacing about the murky dealings in oil purchases, for instance. Who wouldn’t, apart from those who profited from the dealings? But he throws no dirt, as I see it.
The PN throws mud. It has no answer to the PL’s positive message and moderation. It is flummoxed. It is as if it has lost its bearings.
Remember their reaction to the gas power plant proposal the Labour Party unveiled? The proposal tangled their thinking faculties, it gobsmacked them. The gimmick of the millennium, Simon Busuttil called it. Alice in Wonderland, as Tonio Fenech described it. Dr Gonzi dubbed the power station proposal first as a gimmick, and then, I think, as criminal.
And then the PN government went on to announce cheaper night electricity rates, to counter what they had seen as a gimmick. But those cheaper night rates of the PN will be made good for by higher rates during the day.
We must not risk our future with Labour, the PN says. All on their side is negative. They have no answers to Labour’s positives. Now they are also attacking former PN supporters who have said they have switched to Labour. Once a PN supporter, always a PN supporter, I guess (to the increasingly desperate PN leadership). The PN leaders do not accept that there are those who want to wash off the stench of corruption that is creaming off the PN onto them. But the PN leadership seems unable to face the truth.