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Karl Schembri and Kurt Sansone
With the strong backing of 85.6 per cent of delegates, the Labour Party MPs will be voting in favour of the EU Constitution when this comes up for ratification in Parliament next week.
A relaxed Alfred Sant, speaking to MaltaToday soon after the result was known at 10pm, insisted that the delegates who voted for Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici’s motion urging MPs to abstain, were “an integral part of the party and still had an active role to play in the coming years to help the MLP defeat the Nationalist government in the next election.”
Asked for his initial reaction, Sant expressed gratitude at the delegates for deciding to support the position which he believed “was in the best interest of the party and all the Maltese people.”
The motion presented by the MLP executive and parliamentary group urging the party to approve the EU Constitution with reservations, garnered 699 votes while the rival motion presented by Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici garnered 118 votes or 14.4 per cent.
The vote counting, which was not open to media scrutiny, was conducted by the party’s electoral commission composed of the district secretaries. In all 825 delegates were eligible to vote. All of them cast their vote. Five votes were invalid while three abstained.
Leadership secured
Leading his party to electoral victories in two local election rounds and the European Parliament election were not enough for Alfred Sant to strengthen his leadership, which has been under constant attack by Labourites from within and outside the party ever since winning the 2003 leadership contest with an approval rating of 68 per cent.
But yesterday’s resounding approval of the EU Constitution by the Labour delegates has not only confirmed the MLP’s complete u-turn on anything related to the European Union but it has closed the leadership issue once and for all. The result was a vote of confidence in Alfred Sant’s leadership.
Emerging from the Labour HQ at around 9.05pm, while counting of the 825 odd ballots was still on, Alfred Sant could not wait for the moment to relish victory.
The overwhelming support for the motion presented by the MLP executive urging Labour MPs to vote in favour of the EU Constitution leaves no doubt as to who will be leading the party into the next election.
Those harbouring leadership ambitions or who have covertly tried to undermine Alfred Sant, especially in the run up to the general conference have to postpone their personal agendas for the moment.
After taking on former Prime Minister Dom Mintoff in 1998 and relegating the charismatic former leader to political oblivion at the expense of losing an election, Alfred Sant yesterday ensured that Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici will remain on the fringe of the party.
Mifsud Bonnici, with no leadership ambitions and genuinely campaigning against an EU Constitution he claimed would compromise the Maltese Constitution, had led a persistent and consistent campaign to convince delegates to vote in favour of his motion calling on Labour MPs to abstain in Parliament.
Confronted by the Labour leadership’s argument that a rejection of the EU Constitutional Treaty could compromise the next general election for the party, it always seemed likely delegates were going to reject Mifsud Bonnici’s position. It was a battle between Alfred Sant’s political pragmatism and Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici’s principled beliefs.
The M.L.P. factor
At one point, bolstered by the ‘No’ votes in the referenda held in France and the Netherlands, Mifsud Bonnici’s campaign looked as if it could gain valuable ground despite the not so subtle attempts by the party’s administration to muzzle him.
But the death knell to Mifsud Bonnici’s solitary campaign to defeat the establishment’s position sounded when the phantom Moviment Laburista Popolari was founded during the Sette Giugnio celebrations.
Except for its spokesperson, Anna Mallia an outspoken Alfred Sant critic, the M.L.P. remained a faceless organisation. But the jolts it created were enough to convince Labour delegates that if they voted against the establishment on the EU Constitution, the party risked a split. Delegates yesterday rallied around their leader.
Mallia’s ploy weakened Mifsud Bonnici’s campaign as delegates accused the former leader of wanting to split the party even if the former prime minister had nothing to do with the new organisation.
The accusations came to a head on Friday when Mifsud Bonnici was hackled and accosted by a Labour delegate after delivering his final address to the general conference.
Ironically, George Vella, the man leading the leadership’s charge in favour of ratifying the EU Constitution, was the same person anointed by Mifsud Bonnici to become leader of the party after the 1992 election defeat. Vella had declined the offer and subsequently, the relatively unknown Alfred Sant was elected instead.
Ratification of the EU Constitution will start to be debated next Wednesday in Parliament but Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi can rest assured of Labour’s support, even if conditioned by a number of reservations which do not bind Government.
Gonzi, who postponed ratification from December to give Labour a chance to decide its position, can at least claim that he managed to foster national consensus on the EU after 10 long years of bitter political feuding.
As for Alfred Sant; the very EU issue that smashed his electoral chances in 2003 will now give him a better chance for victory in 2008.
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