Opinion • 27 April 2003

Itching to move on

Saviour Balzan breaks his promise and takes another bite at Labour inner politics

I am itching to write about the Iraq war. But with so much happening on the home front, I have resigned myself to some Blair and Bush bashing to a later date.

In the meantime the Shia fundamentalists take over and turn Iraq into their Islamic dream and the Americans look on in shock and awe. So typical.

Now, back to the real world. I did promise did I not that we should train our guns on the Nationalist party? But for heaven’s sake, with so many gimmicks on the other side of the border, it would not be me to shut up and say nothing.

We thought at first glance that two leaders had chosen to call it a day or something to that effect.

The two men being Alfred Sant and Tony Zarb.

Now the latest events indicate that the latter is back to the future and the former is doing everything in his command to ensure that either he stays on or is in a position to guarantee that his chosen one is anointed leader.

To assist Dr Sant is his endeavours he does not need to look far and beyond. His Janissary Manwel Cuschieri continues to spout venom at inappropriate times. Mr Cuschieri, a former waiter, may not have a brief but he surely appears to believe that he has one.

He has no remorse for what has happened and he continues to fly the flag of victory in defeat.

He is not the only one trying to make us believe that the old leadership is the better option, others less endowed in the art of propaganda have been screaming at the top of their voices calling the electorate that voted for Europe as being close to dumb.

The Labour party may choose to go for plastic surgery. The present leadership used to its old ways may go for breast enlargement and for that matter penis enlargement. But it will be very superficial. Sooner or later, the breast will droop; the silicon move and needless to say extended length will have limited, or no real value.

What is needed is a new body. One born out of experienced parents with a genetic make-up that may be slightly out-dated but that can be put to valiant use at more telling moments.

History has this very nasty habit of repeating itself.

On March 8, Alfred Sant recoiled and did a Borg Olivier. He refused to accept a democratic decision just as Gorg Borg Olivier, probably one of the weakest Prime Ministers Malta ever had, had chosen to do following the ‘Integration’ referendum in the late fifties when the majority had coted for integration.

Now, it appears that in the same vein of Dom Mintoff and to a certain extent Eddie Fenech Adami, he will hang on.

In the sixties, Mintoff lost three democratic challenges, two national elections and the Independence referendum.

Yet he stayed on.

Alfred Sant is probably thinking in very much the same way.

This is a small country with few thinkers, limited leaders and an absolute absence of courage.

The courage to stand up and be counted, the courage to speak one’s mind, the courage to sacrifice one’s position for a better good are as vagrant as a Dodo serving sushi at a Valletta pizzeria.

Perhaps the Labour party is unaware that with Alfred Sant at the helm, there is little chance in hell that it will win the next election.

Though the PN may be rusty at times, in five years time it will have the advantage of raking funds and assistance from the EU that will encourage the electorate to look at the grand old party favourably.

Keep Sant and you are doomed, dump Sant, renew and Labour will sail to victory.