Caprice and Sloth

By Saviour Balzan

Four years ago, the whole nation was distracted and unable to focus fully on the World Cup.

It was the summer of 1998, and Dom Mintoff Labour backbencher and former Premier, was firing away at his boss. Out of respect for the former Labour Party icon or at a loss what to do about it, the PM allowed the octogenarian to regurgitate all sorts of insults. It was a Labour public relations disaster that the Nationalists lapped up in delight.

By September, the Nationalists were back in power. Unsure what had hit them and what had got them there.

In 12 months it will be the same old story, but this time there will be no Dom Mintoff to save the day.

Many Nationalists still believe that they won the election in 1998, by now, they should realise that it was Labour who lost.

The Nationalist Party needs some talking to. They have taken it upon themselves to take Malta into the European Union. And for that we thank them. But our support for the Nationalist party is not unconditional. We would gladly support some new faces, with some new ideas and we find ample sections of the Nationalist party to be fossilised, lethargic and impotent.

Adherence to the European ideal is not a Nationalist prerogative, indeed it should be a Labourite one. But Malta’s Labour Party is as politically confused as its leader, Dr Alfred Sant.

Confusion and spinning are two separate issues. And if Dr Sant has a virtue, it is one of political spinning.

In his riposte to Pat Cox, Alfred Sant in parliament talked of gerrymandering as the main reason for the ‘present’ situation.

In other words, Dr Sant was saying that, had it not been for gerrymandering, the Labour Party would have had more than a one-seat majority in 1996. Consequently, it also meant that Dom Mintoff would not have been able to blackmail the labour party. And it follows Malta’s EU application would not have been reactivated.

That in our view is taking the 1998 soap opera far too far, and Dr Sant knows this.

Fortunately for him, very few journalists took him to task over his gerrymandering whinge.

Dr Sant's position on interpreting election results and his vision for electoral reform is narrow minded, conservative and out-dated.

The fact that he resorts to quoting gerrymandering proves that he is weak with his Eurosceptic arguments.

Which confirms that his political spin will have no limits as we all approach D-day. It also calls for a concerted effort by the Nationalist Party and others to form a common electoral front.

The decision whether or not to become European cannot be left to the whims of a stubborn Harvard grad ex-PM nor too easily to the Nationalist Party weighed down by a history of ineptitude and ‘going nowhere’ policy.

The fate of our small republic is far too important for all that.