The acrimonious exchange that we had in Parliament on Monday, involving the Prime Minister and Opposition Leader, brought back to the fore the “us and them” climate that had taken the side since the election.
For months, Robert Abela and Bernard Grech almost seemed to ignore each other.
Maybe, from Labour’s end, Abela did not give too much consideration to his direct political opponent, given that he led the PL to a record victory at the last election.
Maybe, in the PN’s corner, Grech has been too concerned with the persistent talk within the corridors of Pieta that there is some kind of movement to get him out and replace him.
But what happened in the House on Monday rekindled the political rivalry of the two big parties. It had been quite a while since Abela was so aggressive, and it had been quite a while since Grech countered in similar fashion.
They both called each other a liar.
Abela is insisting that the PN reneged on a previous agreement to have former Chief Justice Joseph Azzopardi taking on the role of Standards Commissioner left vacant by George Hyzler last September. Grech replied that this was never the case.
What is sure is that the appointment of the new commissioner will be given without the support of the whole Parliament. There will likely be two votes, spread over two weeks, in which the Opposition will be voting against the nomination, and then the anti-deadlock mechanism will kick in for a simple majority to be required for the government-propelled nomination of Azzopardi to go through.
We will be having the new commissioner next month, and one will look forward to see how he will deal with the challenges he will have to face.
George Hyzler, with his no-nonsense approach, has set the bar very high, and we wait and see whether his successor will be of the same calibre. During his four years as commissioner, Hyzler did not make a wrong move; where there was a breach, he said so, and when the complaint was trivial, he said so too. We expect the new commissioner to follow in his footsteps.
In the meantime, Abela and Grech will continue to bicker on who is right and who is wrong.
They will soon have to deal with another issue – the appointment of the new Ombudsman. In this case, Anthony Mifsud has stayed on in the role after his term expired in March 2021, nearly two years ago. But the ombudsman himself has flagged the uncertainty that this situation has created.
What is bizarre is that, with regard to the ombudsman, both the government and the opposition have agreed on who should be replacing Mifsud – he is former judge Joseph Zammit McKeon. Yet, there has as yet been no move in this direction.
Why is the government dragging its feet on this one if there is an agreement from both ends?