For 100 years, Parliament has served as a symbol of Malta’s democracy.
Earlier this month, activities were held to commemorate the momentous event when Malta, then still under British rule, was granted the right to set up its own House of Representatives. It took another four decades for Independence to be obtained, and since then we have had 12 elections to choose our parliamentarians, and we are heading towards the 13th.
Over the years, and in particular since the perverse 1981 result, we have had changes to the electoral system to better reflect the will of the people. In 1981, the Labour Party won the majority of seats in spite of bagging fewer votes than the Nationalist Party. But these alterations have not been perfect either – the way the system worked, for example, gave Alfred Sant one extra seat in 1996 in spite of winning with enough a margin to have three, and we all remember that his government did not last long.
Whether our parliamentary system is fulfilling its role as it should is an argument that has been ongoing for these last… 100 years. Too often it has failed to live up to the expectations, and is seen by the public as simply a rubber stamp of what the government wants to do. Legislation is brought forward, discussed and amended, and finally enacted. But while this purpose is a well-oiled machinery within the list of functions that parliament performs, what we have in place does little to keep the administration under control.
It will be worse if one party will have a two-thirds majority in the House, as this would mean that it could change the Constitution without as much as a thought of what the Opposition is saying. Given the last surveys, we are not too far from this.
Since independence, in the majority of cases we have had only two parties represented in Parliament. The only exceptions were the presence of Alternattiva Demokratika between 1989 and 1992, but AD’s first leader Wenzu Mintoff had been elected for Labour and then broke ranks; and the Partit Demokratiku in this current legislature. In both occasions, this situation was short-lived, as Mintoff was not re-elected in 1992, while the two PD representatives, Marlene and Godfrey Farrugia, left the PD to become independent MPs and have said they do not intend to contest in 2022.
This two-party situation has by and large meant that too often both the PL and PN, when in government in different periods of time, sought their own party interests first, rather than that of the country, when carrying out their duties in Parliament. Added to this, the current administration has established records in the number of ministers and parliamentary secretaries appointed, leaving a few backbenchers who are then given lucrative roles which hold them back from scrutinising the same government that employs them.
For many years we have spoken about the need to have full time MPs, but this has never materialised. People who might be interested in a political career often prefer to stay back and retain their profession. This deprives the country of a representation of a higher quality.
But then, after all, it is up to the people to decide the MPs who sit in the House on their behalf. Very often, they made the wrong choice.