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Labour secretary general JASON MICALLEF says discriminated Labourites are still waiting for justice. Here’s a glimpse of the future
Malta Labour Party secretary general Jason Micallef outlines his party’s future challenges on the eve of a general conference and the electoral campaign for the local councils. While advocating a “softer” image for his party, he appeals to the party’s grassroots arguing that “talented” Labourites will be running the country’s civil service and public entities following a Labour victory in the next election. Micallef considers his main accomplishment during his past two and a half years as secretary-general was that of branding a less harsh image for the MLP.
“The party’s image is now softer, not in the sense of being weaker in our criticism but in the sense that the party is softer in its approach to tackling problems and transmitting its message on the media.”
Redressing injustices and victimisation is high on Jason Micallef’s agenda. The Labour Party has for the past years been harping on doing justice to Labourites discriminated by the present government.
Attracting former Nationalists fed up with the performance of the government is one of the major challenges facing the MLP. So how far has the party succeeded in making inroads in this category of voters? “This is one of my aims but I would be taking you for a ride if I tell you that I have succeeded to the full. To reach this aim one has to be patient and humble.”
Jason Micallef still finds consolation in the result of the past rounds of local elections and in the European election. His confidence takes a cautious dip: “It would be preposterous to deduce that the high popular support for the party will necessarily result in a victory in the next election.”
Despite his insistence that the MLP is making strategic inroads among the middle classes, the militancy advocated by the present leadership of the General Workers Union could alienate this section of voters from the MLP. Micallef insists that the MLP have no say in decisions made by the General Workers Union: “the General Workers Union, rightly so, does not need the go-ahead of the MLP when taking decisions on industrial issues.”
But doesn’t the MLP end up paying the political cost of the GWU’s decisions? “I have no doubt that 80 to 85 per cent of GWU members support the MLP. The same applies to the UHM. Therefore it is easy for deceitful Nationalist propagandists to implicate the MLP in the GWU’s decision. Yet this is simply not true.”
But still MLP leader Alfred Sant has gone on record saying that the GWU has a privileged relationship with the MLP. After making such a pronouncement isn’t it only natural to associate the MLP with the GWU?
Micallef recalls that Alfred Sant had also said that a future Labour government would work with all unions in the country. “He simply said that as a leftist union, the GWU has a greater affinity to the MLP. In no way was Alfred Sant saying GWU members will be privileged over members of other unions at the workplace.”
Beyond the traditional working class constituency represented by the GWU, Micallef identifies categories like farmers and the self-employed who are likely to shift towards Labour pastures in the next elections. “Farmers and self-employed persons are approaching us, away from the camera lenses due to fear of political intimidation and victimisation.”
He substantiates claims of intimidation by claiming that VAT and Income Tax officials clamp down on those self-employed who welcome Alfred Sant during his visits in industrial zones or who advertise on Super One.
Labour leader Alfred Sant however, writing on the Times on Wednesday, declared that he stands by what he declared when he first became Leader of the Opposition.
“It is not right that in this small island state, when one party is in government, supporters of the other party feel they have no place at all within the country’s structures. And vice-versa when the government changes hands.”
So how does Jason Micallef reconcile the notion of meritocracy still advocated by his leader with the pressures from Labour grassroots calling for a changing of the guard when the MLP is elected?
“I am one of those who firmly belief that the Malta Labour Party is full of capable and talented persons. We have the people with the necessary capabilities to run the civil service and public entities where the government has a majority.”
According to Micallef these choices will not be based on the political colour of these Labourites but on their merits and talents.
Nationalist Minister Austin Gatt is one of those who argue people in key positions should be political appointees. Does Jason Micallef agree with the Labour nemesis? “I simply believe that the MLP, on the basis of merit, has many capable individuals to lead the country. It will be these people who will be running the country after the next election.”
He has already called for the removal of Housing Authority chairman Marisa Micallef and Water Services Corporation chairman Michael Falzon, two columnists who regularly write in the English-language newspapers. Micallef does not object to the fact that Falzon and Micallef are political appointees. But he objects to their partisan articles and radio programmes.
“Michael Falzon presents a partisan programme on Radio 101 in which he lashes out at the MLP. Such partisan behaviour by a public official is unheard of in other democratic countries. I cannot trust public officials like Marisa Micallef who lash out against the MLP leader in their weekly columns.”
Jason Micallef would also object if the political appointees of a future Labour government behave in the same way as Michael Falzon and Marisa Micallef. “I would be the first to criticise a future Labour government if it allows public officials to lash out against the PN in the media.”
Micallef is proposing a code of ethics regulating public officials, still bitter that PN-appointed officials who were reconfirmed in key positions by Alfred Sant had shown no sense of appreciation back in 1996. “Some of these, despite being re-appointed by Alfred, were caught sabotaging the legitimate government.”
By trying to instil a décor of meritocracy in the country Alfred Sant had also alienated the party’s grassroots. Ever since the downfall of Sant’s short-lived government, the leadership question has continued haunting the MLP.
Columnists like Anna Mallia who claim to represent the Labour grassroots argue that the MLP will win as long Alfred Sant remains at the party’s helm. Jason Micallef dismisses Anna Mallia by saying he would not add anything to what he had previously said on her.
He even goes as far as asserting that he has never met a single Labourite telling him that with a new leader MLP will be more likely to win the next election. Micallef simply says that the impression that the MLP will be better off with a new leader is simply “a perception”.
For the past years the MLP has lashed out at the Nationalist government claiming that it is suffering from fatigue after nearly two decades in government. Alfred Sant has been around as leader for the past 14 years. Doesn’t he suffer from fatigue?
Micallef immediately points out that deputy leaders Charles Mangion and Michael Falzon have only been in their leadership positions for two and a half years. According to Micallef the novelty of the new administration compliments “the experience and wisdom of Alfred Sant.”
Still, the new leadership surrounding Sant has not been immune to credibility problems. Mangion’s credibility itself is being questioned after MaltaToday revealed he had signed the deed for the contract for the sale Pender Place, a deal opposed by the MLP leadership. So how does Jason Micallef explain this to the average citizen who cannot understand how the same deputy leader who alleged “bazuzlizmu” in this case, ended up putting his signature on the deal?
According to Micallef, the deputy leader would have had a conflict of interest only if he had been involved in negotiating the sale of the land. But this was clearly not the case. Instead, he exonerates Mangion on the basis that, as public officials notaries, are obliged by law to sign any public deed when a client solicits their services – at best, it’s a claim that can be disputed, since the law is clear about which deeds and contracts a notary is duty bound to sign.
Micallef instead lauds Mangion for not keeping his mouth shut on the Pender Place issue despite signing the deed. “Charles Mangion is far more credible than the Prime Minister who had appointed his own cousin as a consultant earning Lm45 an hour on the Mater Dei Hospital.”
Another MLP member facing serious credibility problems is the MLP’s head of delegation in the European Parliament, John Attard Montalto, who attended just four meetings out of 34 in his main parliamentary committee, three out of 16 in the transport committee, and just one out of 11 in the human rights committee. Micallef defends the maverick MEP by saying that the work of an MP or MEP cannot be measured on the basis of attendance.
“Even the Maltese parliament is empty many times. This does not mean that parliamentarians are not working.”
But Attard Montalto was also absent for a whole month because he was a touring south-east Asia on a cruise. Does Micallef consider Attard Montalto’s position tenable? Micallef limits himself to saying that the MLP is discussing this issue internally and that such matters are trashed in regular meetings which the MLP hold with its MEPs.
When asked on the outcome of these meetings Micallef hides behind “the confidential nature of these meetings”.
The highlight of next week’s general conference will be the approval of two policy documents, one on tourism and one on the environment. The documents are a clear example of the softer side of Labour, appealing to both business interests and environmentalists.
But yet the documents manage to say a lot without any earth-shattering, and potentially vote losing, proposals. They argue that taxes on tourism must be reduces, but not which. Micallef disagrees these are vague proposals. He says they are the result of an inclusive discussion with stakeholders. But while insisting Malta is one of the most taxed countries when it comes to tourism, citing departure tax and taxes on hotels, he still does not state which taxes the MLP will remove. Micallef says more concrete proposals will emerge in the party’s electoral manifesto.
The two draft documents even manage to send conflicting messages. While that on the environment clearly excludes the development of an airstrip, the one on tourism says in emphatic terms that if efforts to revive the helicopter service fail, other forms of air transport will be considered. And excluding the Mongolfier and the Zeppelin, the only thing which comes to mind are aeroplanes. Micallef relishes in the ambiguity.
He contends that any serious document is based on the feedback from different sectors, ergo the feedback from tourist operators favoured the airstrip in Gozo; the environmentalists disagreed. He insists the two positions are reconcilable.
“It is no coincidence that the conference is discussing the two documents simultaneously because we believe that the environment and tourism are inter-related.”
Micallef says the final documents reconcile the protection of the environment and Gozo’s need for a viable air connection with Malta, the tourism document stating other types of air transport will be considered in “full respect of the environment”.
Labour’s general conference will be coinciding with the beginning of the annual local election campaign. The party has always insisted local elections are the best sample to gauge public opinion at a national level. This time round, Micallef is wary of raising the supporters’ expectations.
“We have to be realistic,” says Micallef, warning that this is a difficult round of election for the MLP since it includes Nationalist strongholds like Sliema, Naxxar, San Gwann and Birkirkara. Micallef doesn’t even set for himself the target of winning a majority in these elections, limiting his target to getting a better result than that reached in 2003.
This will not be such a daunting task, considering the fact that the last round of elections coincided with the referendum on Malta’s entry in the European Union, when the PN was on an electoral high.
Yet ever since the PN was re-elected, voting abstention was considerably higher in Nationalist leaning localities. Does the fact that these voters prefer to abstain rather than switch to Labour worry Micallef?
He disagrees the MLP has been winning these elections by default, citing victories in borderline localities like Mellieha, or where Nationalist majorities were overturned in Mqabba and Santa Venera. “It is clear that in the last round of elections, a number of former Nationalists had voted for the MLP for the first time in their life. Four years ago we had won Mellieha by 15 votes, last year we won by 500 votes.”
Labour propagandists claim Labour-led councils are an example of the good governance the MLP would like to instil at national level. Various, however, are marked by infighting. In Zebbug, mayor Paula Vella Schriha resigned after clashes with a former Labour mayor. In Sannat, the Labour mayor was not sure of contesting after being stabbed in the back by the party in his clash with the locality’s executive secretary. Is this an example of good local governance?
Micallef immediately points out that the Sannat mayor, Carmelo Camilleri, will once again contest the Sannat election within the MLP ranks. He acknowledges difficulties in reconciling local councillors coming from all social strata in 68 local councils. Instead, he blamed government for increasing tensions in local councils by burdening them with unsustainable financial and bureaucratic responsibilities.
Labour even assesses the performance of councils by awarding percentages of promises kept and fulfilled. But despite its 90 per cent mark from Labour, Zebbug is the most debt ridden local council in Malta. How credible then is this exercise?
Micallef says percentages are based on the delivery of proposals made in the electoral manifesto for each locality and not on the financial situation of the council. He points out that a substantial part of the Zebbug debt is based on disputable claims of government entities.
As an example of good local governance, Micallef points out that the party is very careful not to promise heaven on earth. “We do not propose a car park costing half a million liri as the PN did in St Paul’s Bay. Don’t they know that local councils cannot embark on such projects?”
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