“We can do it better”

As he eyes his next electoral victory, Alfred Sant argues that Labour’s success is unstoppable

In between planning his electoral victory, Malta Labour Party leader Alfred Sant still finds time to work on a revised edition of the book Silg fuq Kemmuna, which had been published in illegible print in the 1980s. Not surprisingly the characters of Sant’s novel deal with the contrasts between the lazy way of doing things in Malta and the managerial and fast way of doing things coming from the continent.
Sant is certain he will be Malta’s next Prime Minister and he won’t be steered off course by diversions created by the government, internal party strife, or Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici’s rebellion against the ratification of the moribund European Constitution. He wants to get elected to change the way things are done. His mission, as it was way back in 1996, is to instil a managerial ethic on getting things done fast.
But is Alfred Sant’s leadership still threatened by the plots and conspiracies mentioned by Manwel Cuschieri on Super One Radio a few days ago? Alfred Sant does not seem troubled. “I do not feel threatened,” he says, refusing to comment on whether he is awre of any plots to undermine him.
But would the MLP be more palatable with the electorate with a new leader who has not been involved in the 2003 election and referendum campaigns?
“We won three elections in 10 months. We won the European Parliament elections and two local elections,” is Alfred Sant’s crisp reply.
Would he consider facing a confidence vote now, in order to kill these rumours before the next election? Sant’s ominous answer is that “even in cemeteries one finds rumours of plots.”
In the past months cracks have emerged in both large parties. The Labour Party is currently engaged in an internal discussion on what many in Europe now consider a dead European Constitution. Why waste time on something, which is already being considered defunct? Sant insists that this is not the case.
“Every country in the EU has to discuss this document. The treaty itself contemplates that after two years there will be a discussion among Member States to analyse the ratification process. If more than two-thirds of the Member States ratify the treaty and the rest don’t, governments will still have to reach some sort of agreement. Nobody can say that the French have decided for us all.”
Alfred Sant also points out that the Maastricht treaty was approved in spite of the Danish no.
The MLP is in fact the only party in Malta discussing this issue internally, at the cost of painful divisions and other charades by former Labour leader Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici, who had to gatecrash the party assemblies to which he had been barred from attending, in order to participate.
If the MLP is so open and democratic why muzzle Mifsud Bonnici? “The meetings were organised for delegates, Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici is just a delegate like any other delegate. All delegates were expected to attend one meeting out of the six organised. Otherwise some delegates would have had more power than others.”
And yet in spite of all attempts to silence him, Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici – the enduring antihero for all Labour eurosceptics – still managed to get in the Centru Nazzjonali to attend all six assemblies. Did Alfred Sant close an eye to allow his former leader to participate? Alfred Sant admits that he had little choice in this.
“What could I do? Call the police? But I still insist that he was breaking the rules. If you are a delegate you should behave like a delegate. Nobody is anointed by God to attend all the meetings.”
But is Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici, a former Labour leader, just any normal delegate? “The MLP is a democratic party, we are not a feudal party. In our party you are what you are. Ex-leaders are recognised as delegates, nothing less, nothing more. Nobody is divinely inspired to break the rules. This is wrong language, a wrong technology of using politics. There is a discussion, an open discussion, everyone says what he feels and we try to reach some form of agreement.”
I point out to Alfred Sant that the report presented by the MLP shows that there were different opinions among Labour parliamentarians. Alfred Sant acknowledges that there were majorities and minorities in what he described as a “very extensive” debate in the parliamentary group. But now that a decision has been taken in favour of a qualified yes for the EU’s constitutional treaty, no MLP parliamentarian can express himself against it. But he would not state how many Labour parliamentarians voted against.
“Unanimously we decided that parliamentary members would speak with a common voice. We dedicated so much time in discussion in order to be able to speak with a common voice.”
This decision leaves Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici as the solitary voice with standing in the party who can express the sentiment of those who are not keen on ratifying the treaty.
“Nobody has stopped him from doing so,” insists Sant. A week ago, the MLP’s national executive unanimously voted in favour of the position of the parliamentary group. While in the parliamentary group a number of secret votes were taken, the vote in the executive was done by a show of hands. “In the executive, a secret vote is only taken when voting on people. And nobody asked for a secret vote in the executive,” insists Sant.
But can’t Alfred Sant get one thing right on the European issue – have the French and the Dutch have spoiled his chance of appearing euro-friendly? “This is not a question of being euro-friendly, this is a question on what is the best position the party should adopt in the present circumstances. The French decided on the merits of their circumstances. The important thing is that we concentrate on the real issues of the moment. During house visits nobody is speaking to me on the EU constitution. People are concerned about pensions, education and employment.”
In June the MLP will be formulating its economic policy. Alfred Sant refrains from revealing anything on its content. The MLP is constantly harping that the economy is flat. If this is the case, will this restrain the MLP’s options?
“Your question will be answered when the document is published. The important thing is that Malta gets a government, which works. Look at what is happening in Malta enterprise. They have no idea how to carry out business promotion. Just look at the salaries of the top managers of agencies and authorities.”
But will an MLP government revise these salaries?
“You will get an answer when the electoral programme is presented”
Alfred Sant reassures voters that the process leading to the adoption of the Euro will go on irrespective of the result of the election. “Malta has got to join the euro. The process cannot be stopped. The problem was the timing and phasing of it. On these points we disagreed with the government but we cannot reverse time. We are not in possession of a time machine.”
Between 1996 Alfred Sant broke with tradition and left people with PN leanings in positions of influence and power. Will he do the same if he is re-elected? Dr Alfred Sant insists that “who serves well will serve.”
Before the election and the referendum the MLP used to boycott programmes produced by Where’s Everybody. Will programmes produced by the company remain the flagships of PBS under a new Labour government? “The MLP government will not have absolute control of the media. There is pluralism in the country,” Sant answers.
“But will there be a public broadcasting system by the time we will be in government? Will it suffer the same fate as Sea Malta, which has been allowed to go bankrupt by the PN government and is now being sold? Will anything remain public?” he adds ruefully.
Sant does not mince his words on the lack of ideas and energy characterising Nationalist Ministers. “They are tired. They don’t have ideas. Look at Minister Zammit Dimech. Is he not a disaster in tourism? They cannot afford to lose him because he is very good at the constituency level.”
But what guarantee can Sant give that the men around him are more competent than the Nationalists? “Look at our record between 1996 and 1998,” he says about one of the shortest-lived government in Maltese history. “We went too fast probably and we did some mistakes, even if the mistake on electricity bills was done by technocrats.”
Another Minister singled out by Alfred Sant for being incompetent is Tonio Borg. “Instead of facing the immigration problem, he has made entrenching abortion laws in the constitution his priority.”
The immigration theme is in fact high on labour’s agenda. Responding to criticism that the MLP is verging on populism on this theme, he answers that “thank God we are populists on this issue otherwise we will caught up by the extreme right. That’s the danger. We are populist is the sense that we talk about the problems people face in their everyday lives. On one hand we have to understand the hardships of displayed populations faced by immigrants but we cant forget Maltese families.”
So why did the Labour party refrain from condemning the Safi incidents? “I don’t know what the truth is on that matter.”
But what was his reaction to the photos and recordings showing soldiers beating immigrants? “I do not exclude manipulation. I want the truth, I cannot understand how the cameras were on site before this event happened.”
But apart from calling for a national conference, what has Labour concretely suggested to address this problem? “The government could not even organise a conference properly,” insists Sant. “We wanted to organise a serious conference discussing serious issues like the impact of immigration on the labour market. The government did not accept our suggestion to invite a sociologist to address these issues. Instead they invited the Commissioner for Children. In order to discuss international collaboration we suggested inviting Stephen Calleya the expert, and instead they invited Calleya the Malta Independent editor. Initially they even objected to inviting Martin Scicluna. He made the only serious contribution to the conference. This just shows the incompetence of Tonio Borg.”
Alfred Sant, unlike some others in his party has not enthusiastically welcomed the Tonio Borg’s proposal to enact the laws enacting abortion in this constitution. Writing in The Times, Sant has warned a fundamentalist fervour is sweeping the country. So why does the Labour Party simply kill this discussion by declaring that it will be voting against the constitutional amendment to entrench abortion laws in the constitution?
“First we have to study exactly what this measure implies. As pointed by Joe Brincat one of the implications of Tonio Borg’s proposal is that if these laws are entrenched, parliament could find itself in a situation where it would be unable to strengthen these laws, as it would need two-thirds majority. This proposal was half baked and not well thought out.”
Sant notes a double standard between the intransigence on abortion and the lax attitude towards paedophilia during the past years. “There was no zero tolerance on this issue.”
Alfred Sant considers the whole idea of entrenching abortion in the constitution as “a political diversion from the economic and social problems facing the country.”
He also raises his objections on the way the IVF issue was raised out of the blues. “This is something which is perfectly acceptable. Through modern technology we are simply giving infertile couples the chance to have children.”
So should Sonya Camileri resign after making these declarations? “She should not have said those things.” And would a future Labour government keep her in her post? “I cannot speak on the appointments of a new Labour government. First we get elected than we see.”
But will a future Labour government break the mould by introducing divorce? The answer is no. The discussion on this topic is a closed one in the MLP. “There was no backing from civil society when we spoke on this issue. I have not heard a single voice from civil society on this topic during the past years.”
One issue, which has recently emerged from hibernation, is electoral reform. Alfred Sant insists that the party’s main concern is ensuring proportionality between vote’s cast and the proportion of seats.
“We have always insisted that this should be calculated on first count votes. It does not make sense to discuss a threshold if this principle is not accepted. Once we agree on proportionality based on first counts than you can discuss the threshold. The third point to consider is governability. We have to proceed in that order. Agreeing on the threshold before agreeing on proportionality on first count votes does not make sense.”
This issue has been last raised during the parliamentary debate on the electoral commission report. Any new developments on this front? Sant insists that the parties have still not met since than. Alfred Sant disagrees with setting up a new commission
“We cannot go on playing these games. There was a structure already working. The parties were already meeting. What we need is an agreement between the three parties. First an agreement on first count votes, than an agreement on the nature of the threshold and finally agreement on governability. If such an agreement is reached it should be approved by the national executives of the three parties. Finally representatives of the three parties accompanied by their legal experts could draft an agreement.”
In parliament Alfred Sant declared that the MLP would be insisting that the party with the relative majority should govern. Is the MLP excluding a coalition government?
“Alternattiva are agreeing with the MLP on this principle that the party with the relative majority should govern. Of course we are open to discussion on this point.”
But is an MLP-Alternattiva coalition possible? “Our aim is an absolute majority in the country,” insists Sant.
But what will effectively change if Labour is elected? “We shall change things. We shall change things,” Sant repeats almost hypnotically.
“We have to stop the stagnation. We have to do things from the top down. One has to have a project team under the control of a minister and get things done as we did in Bugibba back in 1996. In 1996 we started solving problems. Tourism was flat. We responded by a project in Bugibba, a locality attracting 40 per cent of our tourists, and we gave a sign to operators that we meant business. At that time ST Microelectronics told us that they were going to leave the island. Unlike the Fenech Adami administration, we reassured them that they will keep the tax exemptions.”
Does he have one thing in your mind – winning the election? “This is quite simplistic. I have never lied to win elections. You should mention one instance where I have lied.”
But will Alfred Sant resign if he loses the next election? Sant does not even consider this possibility. “We will win the next election.”