It has gone largely unnoticed so far, but last week President Marie Louise Coleiro Preca began the last year of her term in office. She will be going round laying flowers at the monuments of her predecessors today in the knowledge that, a year from now, she will be joining the band of Presidents Emeriti.
And not before time, too, for one of the strengths of our often-maligned Constitution is the fixed term for the Head of State and, so far, that it cannot be extended or prolonged. Other Constitutions have different parameters: some can be extended (the US allows only one extension, for example) and others like France have a longer term. Some Presidents are elected by popular suffrage (France, for example) while others are elected by an extended parliamentary vote (Germany and Italy, for instance).
In Malta’s case, the choice of the President is a jealously-guarded privilege of the Prime Minister of the time unless, like Eddie Fenech Adami, he gets himself appointed to the post. Otherwise, the Prime Minister appoints a person he wants to especially thank, or a person he may want to get rid of.
The coming eleven-and-a-half months will thus see speculation floating around, trying to outguess the Prime Minister’s eventual choice. No doubt the Prime Minister himself will find himself at the centre of conflicting pressures trying to push against this or that candidate.
Previous Prime Ministers rode the wave brilliantly, with no visible repercussions. It was only Lawrence Gonzi who buckled under the strain and, rather than appoint a member of his party, chose to appoint the runner-up in the leadership race of the opposite party. As we all know, that choice was a disastrous one for it did not bring about the national reconciliation that Dr Gonzi hoped for and it turned large swathes of the Nationalist Party against the leadership. Eventually, Dr Gonzi’s party lost heavily in the polls and it has not recovered since.
It is far too early to express a judgement on the current President but I would think no future President will dare emulate her total dedication to Community Chest Fund fund-raising. Even so, the CCF and the President herself have found themselves accused in the case regarding the terrible accident at the Paqpaqli event at the airport (and the preceding President testified in Court that he took far more painstaking precautions on the Paqpaqli events). I would hope that no future President will consider his or her office to be a sort of appendix to the CCF fund-raising.
I speak, I believe, for many who feel the country has been sadly let down by this President in these times of stress. The nadir was reached when the President carried on with her state visit to the Ukraine when Daphne Caruana Galizia was killed, instead of coming urgently to Malta. Of course, the government line in those days was ‘business as usual’ and, days later, the Prime Minister left on one of his passport-selling forays abroad.
(Speaking of the Ukraine, it was the then Foreign Minister George Vella who carried on with a visit there when the streets of Kiev were aflame with revolution and fighting, as if nothing was happening.)
Given the prevailing situation, there is absolutely no guarantee that the Prime Minister will choose the best person or that he will not use this opportunity to score points in an internal party power struggle. One may think that a Prime Minister with that incredible majority has been elected dictator for life, but then Joseph Muscat did not get his way in the deputy party leader election.
When it comes to sticky subjects, such as the place of the Catholic religion in the Constitution or the neutrality clause, Dr Muscat kicks the can down the street and speaks of the nebulous Constitutional Convention and, according to what he said in Parliament last November, this will take place after his term of office. So it would seem we are doomed to get a new President according to the present Constitution and not according to the new one. The Prime Minister will thus get another chance to play internal party politics and/or possibly remove a potential rival.
Just a few months later, in May, the Maltese electorate will get a chance to express judgement on the choice in the European Parliament elections and the local council elections. By that time, Britain will have left the EU and who knows what will develop of the current meltdown in our financial services sector. One thing is certain: we will get a new President to grace our band clubs’ annual celebrations and to take pride of place at our state events. Otherwise, it will be business as usual.
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