News • November 16 2003

Jason’s new beginning at Mile end

At 32 Jason Micallef is one of the youngest persons to have held the post of secretary general. Here he speaks to Kurt Sansone about the party’s relationship with the media, past mistakes and future challenges.

A number of people including former MPs who fell out with the Labour Party over the last five years have said they are ready to work with the new Labour administration and discussions have already started with some individuals on possible avenues of collaboration.
The new MLP secretary general, Jason Micallef says there are positive signs from people who may have not seen the party in a good light over recent years.
What a difference a week makes in politics. I meet the new Labour Party secretary general Jason Micallef seven days after interviewing Jimmy Magro in the same office on the third floor.
Their initials may be the same, but in every other respect a whiff of change seems to have wafted over the large glasshouse in Hamrun.
For starters, Jimmy’s pet budgie is no longer present and on top of the television set sits an effigy of Mr Micallef’s favourite Manchester United player Ruud van Nistelrooy.
The TV is set on international news and music from a private radio station provides background atmosphere.
The media man he is, Mr Micallef points out that he has to be au courant with what is being reported on other stations including international news channels.
We get down to business and I ask him whether Labour’s new buzz word ‘inclusiveness’ is simply just that.
"It is not a buzz word. We are offering all the space possible to those who may have sympathised with us in the past, even those that held official positions and who for some reason or another were irked by certain attitudes of the party in the past years.
"My appeal is simple. All those who have something to offer the Labour Party, or who want to support the party have all the space to do so. We are asking those who left us to come back and in some instances we are even prepared to lower our heads and go to them ourselves."
It may be right to talk of inclusiveness, but people won’t come back unless there is something different to attract them to the party. Mr Micallef agrees, but he is confident things have changed.
"We have managed to elect an administration that is by and large composed of new faces. In the leadership we have two new deputy leaders and Alfred Sant is still young in political terms.
"There has also been a change in the way politics is conducted. We are exploring the reasons why certain people were irked, we will discuss matters and move on."
Mr Micallef believes that most of the clashes were personality based. "Rather than policy differences, in most cases it was an issue of people not seeing eye to eye with each other," he says.
Mr Micallef adds that the party has suffered from lack of unity for too long and putting this right is one of the priorities for the new Administration.
On whether dissent is an ailment that is associated solely with the Labour Party, Mr Micallef is convinced that in closed quarters the Nationalist Party has similar arguments and internal conflicts.
"It is in the nature of all political parties on the left of the political spectrum to be predisposed to hang their washing outside. I am absolutely against externalising conflict. Once a decision or a vote has been taken internally one cannot go and write in newspapers and expose the conflict. For me, that is unacceptable.
"There are internal structures where anybody can push forward his or her argument or criticism. But once a vote is taken every member of this party has to abide by the decision. With Dr Sant’s arrival in 1992 in terms of argumentation and discussion things took a different turn. Whereas in Mintoff’s era there was hesitation to contest decisions taken, Dr Sant opened up the party to more internal discussion. But I also think that some took advantage of the new situation (mis-seba hadu l-id) and eventually from liberty it became libertinage.
"I have to add that part of the fault could have been due to the attitude adopted by the previous administration. When we had people exposing conflict in public, the party’s reaction was harsh, we either used our media to reply, or cut them off immediately. Adopting a different approach could have helped more."
I ask Mr Micallef about the vigilance and discipline board of the Party, which has not been seen as the ideal of structures. The new secretary general says the time has come for the Board to be restructured, but when I ask him about Alfred Mifsud’s case he refrains from commenting.
"I was not part of the administration when the issue cropped up, but I have to point out that the Board is autonomous from the party and many a times we wouldn’t know of the complaints brought in front of it."
Back to Mr Micallef’s pet subject, the media, and he admits that certain elements within the party might have irked the media with their behaviour. "They were reacting to media criticism, but in today’s times you have to be less intelligent to create a war with the media. I sympathise with the media and am very conscious of its workings. But I am confident that everybody has their own personal agenda. You cannot be working with someone who gives you guidelines and say that you have no agenda. The relationship between the Labour Party and the media has to be one based on respect. This is a game, we can agree and disagree but definitely if we do not agree we don’t need to embark on crusades."
The Labour Party has been accused of sidelining the discussion on the report drawn up by an independent commission on the reasons that led to a second defeat at the polls. The outgoing administration and national executive had unanimously decided to leave the analysis to the new administration. Mr Micallef insists the report has not been forgotten.
"The new administration has not yet met and discussed the report, but it will be one of its first priorities. We will evaluate it and take the necessary measures to implement the changes identified. It may be the case that in the report there are suggestions that could have been dealt with already by the general conference that has just ended."
The general conference was a bubbly affair that ended with champagne glasses after the compromise reached with Dr Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici on the EU motions.
However, some have suggested that the compromise might lead to a problem of interpretation in the future. I ask Mr Micallef whether it would have been better had the conference taken an actual vote to close the chapter once and for all, but he is of a different opinion.
"Nobody can predict the future. It has been a long time since we had a general conference where people sported beaming faces. We emerged united because everybody won. I have no indication that the compromise reached with Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici will create problems in the future."
But what is his personal interpretation?
"Everybody in the Labour Party is accepting the new reality that Malta will be an EU member state as of 1 May 2004. Naturally we will be insisting that government make the best of the advantages EU membership offers, but we will also be vigilant to the disadvantages that may come our way especially those that negatively affect workers."
Mr Micallef insists that the Labour Party has to make sure that government drafts plans to create job opportunities, to attract foreign direct investment and stimulate tourism. "We need to create work and not with empty promises. This country has big problems. Since my appointment my main appeal towards government has been to forget the EU issue. It is now resolved, it is a closed chapter. The Labour Party has accepted that it will work within the new reality. It is time now for government to start dealing with domestic problems. Everything indicates that this budget will be hard on workers and in these circumstances the Labour Party will monitor the situation to make certain that workers don’t shoulder all the burden."
Mr Micallef laughs when I ask him to comment on the Prime minister’s statement that the forthcoming budget will be the Opposition’s first test.
"When the Prime minister publicly admits that his administrations over the last 16 years caused the huge deficit and when he apologises to the public for bringing the country to the state it is in now, the Labour Party will then co-operate to solve the problems.
"I don’t know if the Prime minister was being sarcastic when he made that statement. What it means is that the Prime minister is asking the Opposition to agree with government on the austerity measures to be taken in the next budget. First we have a disaster brought about by bad administration like the Gozo Channel company where we had the minister for Gozo employing people only to have the current chairman say that the situation is now unsustainable. We also have PBS where successive Nationalist administrations ran the station and there was tremendous waste. Similar situations can be found at Air Malta, the civil service, the Mater Dei hospital... how can the prime minister be credible now when he says that the first test of the Opposition is to agree with government’s austerity measures? We cannot agree with him, we are taking him for a joke."
Mr Micallef is confident that in five year’s time the Labour Party will be in government. "These are exciting times even if we are in the Opposition. Renewal always brings exciting times. The average age of the administration has come down drastically and we have a similar mentality. We talk of our kids and other family issues. The atmosphere is vibrant and in political terms we have a young leadership.
“If we manage to transmit the atmosphere created within the party to the people outside, I am convinced that people will trust us with government.”