News • 23 March 2003

Is Bondi Boldfinger?

Lou Bondi is not Sant’s favourite person. Should Labour win the election will Bondi and the Where’s Everybody? production team, creators of Xarabank and Bondi+, be in trouble and what does Bondi think of the present electoral campaigns. MATTHEW VELLA finds out

Bondi’s candid demeanour when asking questions to political leaders can easily make him unloved. Maybe it is because he hails from Canada, land of Maltese and Gozitan ex-pats, arming him with a detached eye on the weird way of Maltese politics. When he asks Labour Leader Alfred Sant a question, he is not always answered, and yet he asks politely, not sardonically, always at the risk of being verbally attacked by the Labour leader.

Yet, he is on top of it, mostly. Bondi worked with the Nationalist Party upon his return from Canada, at the helm of Radio 101, and worked with the party until 1996’s electoral loss, of which campaign he was one of the architects.

In the end, his and his colleagues’ campaign to re-elect a tired and arrogant Nationalist government failed. Sant’s New Labour triumphed, albeit bombing just 22 months into its tenure.

And yet, he confirms the Ma Tistax Tafdah (You cannot trust him) leitmotif had been proved following Sant’s curt legislature and today asks: ‘Wasn’t it prophetic?’ It was an attack on what Sant could represent, on what Sant stood for, featuring his portrait tucked away into the bottom corner of a stark billboard, his eyes peering just over the border. The half-faced Sant subsequently gave Maurice Tanti Burlo’s nalizpelra caricature a new twist.

"The attack was not on a personal basis," Bondi says, "and people should start making the difference between what’s personal and that which attacks the politician and their policies. In 1996, there was never a personal attack on Alfred Sant. So think of that phrase, and I ask, seven years later, wasn’t it prophetic?"

It could have been, and yet the slogan did not work.

"It didn’t work, because people at that time did not believe you could not trust him. But I tell you, put that poster up today and see if people will believe it."

And that is what the PN seems to be doing once again, attacking Sant, accusing him of aiming to destroy the country with its latest slogan (Sant irid ifarrak pajjiz). Lack of ideas, then? A fixation with Europe? Deflecting the signs of a tired government by turning its attack onto Alfred Sant? But Bondi remains non-committal and refuses to comment on the PN’s new campaign: "I don’t know, you are asking me a question that should be directed to the PN."

The Ma Tistax… slogan did not work, by Bondi’s own admission, and possibly due to Sant’s masterful projection of the MLP in the run-up to the 1996 elections.

"In the run-up to the 1996 general elections, Alfred Sant managed to project an image of the MLP which was acceptable to a number of Nationalists. He projected the party as being led by ‘a man who promised the people he could run a Nationalist government’.

"So people felt comfortable, saying ‘I can change the government, keep the same sort of philosophy, and have it run by this man.’

"After 1996, when the weight of power and public office fell on Sant’s shoulders, that’s when the problems started and you start getting confusing messages about what his party stands for. On the one hand he was taking decisions which were extremely right-wing. At other times he was taking decisions which made him look very autocratic. It was also a time when an internal ideological battle between Sant and Mintoff finally destroyed the government. But beyond ideology, there were a lot of personality conflicts in the MLP.

"After 1998, we see an MLP characterised by, and I can’t use another word, by bitterness. Rather than a political philosophy, it is a party that is bitter, and one that just says ‘no’ to anything the government proposes.

"Now we are entering into a new phase as we enter another electoral campaign. Sant is trying to go back to 1996 again, telling the electorate he can govern everyone, coaxing pro-EU Labourites, saying they will be given an honourable place in a new MLP government.

"But between the lines, we have to look at other elements. For example, the ‘L-Ewwel Int’ slogan seems to be aimed at showing that ‘unlike Fenech Adami, who is talking about Europe, I am willing to look at your problems, you come first,’ as if the general European picture won’t affect anyone. There is no way you can separate Europe from Maltese issues."

Like most journalists, Bondi was also present at the Ta’Qali counting hall on the surreal Sunday that saw the whole personality atelier of Super One, embarking on a celebration bonanza outside the Marsa studios. Watching the PA system being stacked up in preparation for Alfred Sant’s confirmation of victory was like viewing Asian communist slapstick.

"I lived that day in Ta’ Qali, so I can only speak about what was happening at Ta’ Qali. First the PN said the referendum was won, and you could see the unofficial announcement had been accepted by the Labour officials and activists. A bit of information I gathered later on is that, at that particular time, or an hour or so after, Super One stopped transmitting live from Ta’ Qali and began airing a sort of documentary, traditionally the sign of a party that has lost.

"Then, a bizarre twist of events, as Sant came to Ta’ Qali to announce that ‘Partnership’ had won. As the day progressed however, it was more than clear that, by the normal standards that votes are counted, the ‘yes’ vote had won.

"So I came out of there very perplexed, trying to find out what was it that caused the Labour leader to say he won. It was only later that it became clear that he did so by counting the dead, the mentally infirm and those who couldn’t be bothered to vote."

Bondi is right. But Sant’s shrewd politico mind has done wonders for his campaign. He is accusing the government of neglecting local issues in its European Union accession bid. Announcing his bogus victory at the bogus referendum, Sant has hardened his core and is attempting at coaxing back pro-EU Labourites. But Bondi is sceptical of whether Sant will accommodate these estranged Labourites into his fold.

"I think this election ought to be taken step by step. Earlier this week, Sant twice used the phrase ‘Alla hares qatt nidhlu fl-Unjoni Ewropea’ (God forbid we should ever enter the EU). He confirmed it again the day after he said it, so within the span of 24 hours, the Opposition Leader has twice categorically stated he would not take Malta into the EU.

"As things stand now, anyone who wants Malta to join the EU, and wants a government that wants to take Malta in the EU, it has to be a Nationalist government. This is not a partisan comment, but a statement of fact."

I ask him whether he too was one of the hopefuls for a PN-AD pro-EU coalition.

"I think the PN-AD coalition was a sword that cuts both ways. It would have been nice to see a continuation of the national approach to the EU, but the other, perhaps more dangerous side, it might have been possible that it would form a ‘party’ that does not take Malta into the EU."

I am loathe to surmise whether he is either dumb or just plain smart. He says the AD votes would have served to get Labour into power. We are not on the same wavelength. The idea of a coalition was that AD’s votes would be added to the PN’s count. I ask him to clarify.

"Well, I’m not so sure that was on the cards, because so little information has come out on the matter, so that’s my comment really."

He certainly doesn’t envy Harry Vassallo: "He has a lot of responsibility on his shoulders. AD has acted in the national interest all throughout the referendum campaign, and I praised them publicly on Joe Grima’s programme, saying they acted responsibly and put their beliefs before everything else. I hope, and am sure AD will, approach this election with the same sense of responsibility."

Bondi is currently doing the rounds at the parties’ press conferences. He says he enjoys it, and he is equally poised to pummel Bondi+ shots at both Opposition and Government. At Mile End however, Bondi is a target for insult.

It is just an hour following a Sant press conference, to which Bondi is not exactly enamoured as we speak. His production company, Where’s Everybody? partnered by camera-shy Peppi Azzopardi, is on Labour’s black list, not least for its pro-EU label and Nationalist flirtations. The morning of our interview, during a press conference about pensioners and the disabled, Bondi brazenly asked Sant what vision of journalism did he concur to.

"I asked him that question for the simple reason that I’ve been going to his press conferences, asking him questions, and he first starts out by insulting me and then by not giving me an answer, telling me ‘that is not the subject.’

"I don’t think this is the way to respect a journalist’s profession. I don’t tell him how to run his party or what policies to take, so who is he to tell us how to do journalism? Nowhere in the democratic world are journalists treated that way. I am very happy going to press conferences, but hope that by the end of the campaign we will start getting some answers from Alfred Sant."

I also remind Bondi of the fears that both Azzopardi and him could have of a new Labour government being elected, their production company having been effectively boycotted by Labour for the past year and a half.

"Let’s start from here. What is the reason why Labour has attacked WE? My answer is because we do one thing – journalism. And it seems that with Alfred Sant as leader, Labour does not like the fact that we ask difficult questions. I can find no other reason why we are so shabbily treated by the MLP. We have never been accused in front of the Broadcasting Authority of being unbalanced or biased. Not even the Labour Party has protested that we were unbalanced.

"Whenever I feel the need to criticise the government or the Prime Minister, I do so. I invite anyone to watch the three or four interviews I have done with the Prime Minister over the last nine months, and challenge anyone to mention one question I didn’t ask him that I should have.

"But the Labour Party doesn’t seem to realise that. If anything, what the boycott against WE achieves is that it shields Alfred Sant from that sort of treatment, but it certainly exposes the government’s faults.

"Are we being penalised for having certain views? But God forbid, if that was the case, what sort of a country would this be, what sort of Prime Minister would he be? If that’s the country he wants. Whatever he does to WE after the election, we will continue fighting."