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For those who have missed it so far, Bundyism is a political device developed by the Nationalist Party to enjoy it both ways. When a significant segment of your support begins to show signs of impatience, you create an external focal point where they can rally, expend their energy and be driven back en masse to the fold. Political scientists from all over the world are crowding our shores to study the phenomenon.
It takes its name from John Bundy whose smash hit “Pajjiz tal-Mickey Mouse” was a supreme example of the mechanism at work. After a decade of supporting a PN government and standing for election in its ranks, Mr Bundy expressed the dissatisfaction of thousands at the country produced by his and his colleagues’ efforts. It was a truly virtuoso performance in Bundyism.
It may be unfair to John Bundy to claim that this was his deliberate intention. It just works that way. Far be it from me to imply that Josie Muscat has such Macchiavelian plans in contesting the Marsaskala Local Council election. But that too works that way. Nationalists in the locality are expressly invited to express their dissatisfaction by voting for him, their dissatisfaction at a Nationalist administration. In this way it will not be expressed in absence from the polls nor as a swing across to Labour. The Greens are not contesting that election. Nationalist would-be renegades are invited to the Muscat corral. And then what?
Will there be a Muscat party come the next election? A crusade for reform on the eve of general election? I think not. The lost sheep are in a holding pen for now. Openly invited to vent their protest at the neglect which has been their lot at the hands of “their” government. What will come of it? It reminds me of Austin Gatt describing the Qajjenza gas bottling plant as a chicken farm after 10 years under the care and custody of a party colleague. Were we invited to share his disgust just to blow off steam? And later on vote for the party that produced the chicken farm?
It is quite similar in Sliema where the Greens are contesting. The dissatisfaction with the Nationalist administration is palpable. It is not possible for the PN to admit fault and apologise, so the PN attacks the PN. Among the long list of PN candidates in the locality a faction aims to corral the dissidents by having a policy directly contrary to that adopted by the PN majority local council in the past three years. It champions residents in revolt against their council. Wow!
As an alien visitor to the bi-partisan planet for the past 17 years I have often had occasion to experience the existence of parallel worlds in the same small space. For many Nationalists as well as for many Labourites, nothing exists beyond the narrow confines of their party. All dissent must be digested within these little worlds. Still the party within a party is a new development.
Here we have the old guard and the new guard at loggerheads. Contesting under the same ticket but at daggers drawn. Nothing altogether new except for the fact that it is out in the open. While Marsascala Nationalists are neglected because they are a far outpost of the PN empire, Sliema Nationalists are neglected because they are assumed to be permanent political prisoners, political homing pigeons with nowhere to go except back to the coop. They may have a surprise in store for the Bundyists and the anti-Bundyists.
The PN Bundy faction in Sliema allows angry Nationalists a good flap in the fresh air criticising the Qui-Si-Sana policy foisted on residents by the government regardless of their complaints and in the near absence of the PN dominated Local Council. It is intra-party politics, the kind of political cannibalism Malta appears to have perfected. It is set to produce precisely the same result in the end: dissent digested in the cavernous maw of a party which is all things at once, dissent deactivated as a force for change. Perhaps this time the change will happen regardless. The Green presence allows for escape.
Sannat is a Labour stronghold just as Sliema is PN territory. It figures in the MLP electoral stakes with an amazing 84 per cent fulfilment rate. Here too intra-party politics has created strong dissatisfaction. Sannatin have seen their local council paralysed when a Labour mayor was not allowed the support he deserved from his party in fending off the council secretary. They are all wondering what awesome peaks it would have conquered had it not been crippled by intra-party intrigue. At a crucial time for the locality the council was in no position to provide the backup it was duty-bound to provide to residents facing a major development on their doorstep: the Ta’ Cenc villa-village.
A resident’s group was obliged to see to informing residents about the proposed development and about the MEPA documents available for scrutiny and comment at the council offices. Locked out of the village school hall, the group held the meeting for residents at the house of John Mizzi, now contesting the Sannat election with the Greens.
It is no secret that the MLP is adamant in its support for golf course development at Ta’ Cenc. Its stance criticising the villa development without which no golf course development will take place is a contradiction in terms and experienced as such by Sannat residents. It is very peculiar form of Bundyism, a weird species of the same genus.
Not being the government, Labour has few opportunities to emulate the PN in seeking support by criticising its own actions. Here it sticks with its national pro-golf policy and annihilates it at the same time. It seeks to pacify the tourism sector operators enamoured of golf while throwing a sop to residents shocked at the idea of a new town built over Gozo’s most pristine countryside area. It is clearly going both ways at once.
Assuming that Sannat Labourites have nowhere to go, it has fielded a candidate with less than superb environmental credentials: a past mayor who achieved national fame by dumping quarry sand to make a beach at Mgarr ix-Xini whose seahorse population has since become extinct. Ironically, party stronghold voters are the most brazenly neglected. My guess is that this is a time of change which will make a significant dent in the parallel world structure of Maltese politics. Nothing spectacular; neither Sliema nor Sannat will upset the overall average which the PN and MLP will loudly quarrel over. It will make a difference on the ground, in the locality, and the message will be loud and clear from residents to the political parties.
The best possible result for the Greens in Sliema, Sannat, Lija, Zabbar and Birkirkara will hardly feature in the national party results. And who cares? It will matter and be a very strong signal easily interpreted in these localities with their very different scenarios. It will be a clear rejection of every-which-way politics, the politics of everything and its opposite at once. Call it a protest vote if you like. It will be a vote in favour of recognisable and consistent politics which hold the interest of residents firmly in mind, resisting the string-pulling of private greed and narrow party interests, a loud demand for change.
Dr Vassallo is Chairperson of Alternattiva Demokratika
The Green Party
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