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As expected, Queen Elizabeth II got an ‘enthusiastic’ and ‘warm’ welcome during her visit to Malta last week. This was her fourth visit to Malta since she succeeded her father on the British throne.
Aficionados of curious statistics, political analysts and other pundits might find the following statistical information on the Queens’ visits to Malta quite interesting:
• First visit: May 1954. Maltese Prime Minister: G. Borg Olivier (PN) – lost the first election to be held after visit (1955) to Dom Mintoff (MLP) who was then Leader of the Opposition.
• Second visit: November 1967. Maltese Prime Minister: G. Borg Olivier (PN) – lost the first election to be held after visit (1971) to Dom Mintoff (MLP) who was then Leader of the Opposition.
• Third visit: May 1992. Maltese Prime Minister: E. Fenech Adami (PN) – lost the first election to be held after visit (1996) to Alfred Sant (MLP) who was then Leader of the Opposition.
• Fourth visit: November 2005. Maltese Prime Minister: Lawrence Gonzi (PN) – now what?
So, it does seem to me that whenever Elisabetta Regina visits Malta she triggers enthusiastic and warm welcomes from the people who then proceed to change the party in Government at the first available opportunity. Can there be any doubt that Lawrence Gonzi must have been teasing fate in the last few days?
With such a hat-trick of uncanny coincidences, will the Queen now produce a poker, if not a ‘royal flush’?
Isn’t this another good reason why one should bet on a Labour victory in the next general elections? Considering the incredibly fickle reasons that induce most citizens to vote one way or another, I do believe it’s as good a portent as any!
In the present Maltese political climate, the odds are that it will be a poker, even though Alfred Sant and the ‘privileged’ Tony Zarb are doing their damnedest to avoid the writing on the wall!
How else can one explain Sant’s and Zarb’s penchant to put their foot in it? How on earth could Alfred Sant attack the Government on the issue of public broadcasting without realising that for Nationalists this is an emotional issue that would provoke a backlash and push away from him many of those who want a change and had started to stomach him willy-nilly? How on earth could Tony Zarb order a protest march during the Queen’s visit without realising that such a stupid thing would damage the GWU’s reputation more than the Government’s? How can l-orizzont expect to be taken seriously as an independent newspaper after its incredibly foolish and injudicious front page last Thursday?
As for me, these four visits happen to coincide with four chapters of my varied life. From a schoolboy waving a flag in 1954, hardly seeing the Queen at all; to a student leader meeting the Queen in 1967 at Tal-Qroqq; to a Government Minister again meeting the Queen in that capacity in 1992; to a laid back 60-year old watching some of the proceedings of the Queen’s visit on television.
With royalty it is a case of Ministers (and Prime Ministers) that may come and may go, but they go on for ever…
I do not remember much of her 1954 visit. I don’t even know whether I waved a Maltese flag or (horror of horrors) a Union Jack. Somehow, I’m sure she did not wave back at me; otherwise such a wonderful thing would have been surely permanently registered in my mind. My meeting her in 1967 was a courteous but a very short episode, not very enlightening, as far as I can remember!
I remember that in her 1992 visit, after I was introduced to her as the ‘Minister for the Environment’, the Queen passed an inquiring comment on the abandoned building on the Rabat road, opposite Mount Carmel Hospital. To be honest, this was the only time that the Queen Elizabeth impressed me during my whole life – she was obviously ‘in love’ with Malta and such eyesores actually bothered her.
I mumbled something about the development having been stopped as it was illegal and that it will have to be pulled down. I could hardly explain to her the Lorry Sant/Lajlaj combination (or conspiracy) that had unleashed the train of events that led to the start of an illegal development without any permits whatsoever and that could never have been sanctioned by the planning law prevailing at the time or the ones that succeeded it. Luckily, this time around she will not have cause to repeat the same complaint, as the development has been removed and the affected fields in the area have been rehabilitated – a rare occurrence in this fair land.
Her Majesty must have seen some nice roads this time around and she might have possibly been positively impressed. The best thing about these roads is that - whether it is true or not that they were laid out in time for her visit - they are here to stay, and she cannot take the nice roads with her back to Buckingham Palace!
This time, in fact, she arrived back home sooner than the other three times, leaving on a jet plane from Malta International Airport - just as she had come. If I recall correctly, on her other three visits she had come to Malta and left by sea, via the Grand Harbour, on the now decommissioned Royal Yacht ‘Britannia’.
Come to think of it, what the PN might perceive to be the curse of the Queen’s visits was possibly not Her Majesty herself… and the bête noir after all, could have been just her wicked black yacht! And this has now been taken care of…
Perhaps Lawrence Gonzi can even utter a heavy sigh of relief! Rejoice: all is not lost. Not yet anyway!
micfal@maltanet.net
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