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Josie Muscat was live on Int X’Tahseb this week, when I asked him whether his political ‘ambitions’ stop with his adventure in the Marsaskala local council elections. He tellingly answered: “For the moment.”
Josie Muscat is no small fry but there is little doubt in my mind that the Nationalist party has little interest in bridging out to him. Anyone who remembers Josie Muscat will recall his popularity in the eighties as an outspoken Nationalist. He has been in the cold for twenty odd years, putting his energy into building a private hospital with no help from any friends. The entrepreneur and former firebrand politician is not only financially sound, but teeming with ideas and energy.
But instead of being embraced by the boys at Pietà, he is ignored.
How bloody thick. If they only knew what the level of disenchantment was, they would be a wee bit more thoughtful.
Josie Muscat does not mince his words. When I reminded him that the Prime Minister lived in M’Scala too. He harked back: “Yes, perhaps, but he does not stand in the M’Scala constituency in the national election.”
Josie Muscat has a very clear idea of politics and people in Malta. He thinks that we all deserve better.
Another no nonsense talker is Austin Gatt.
Interviewed by MaltaToday, Gatt brushes off any assessment of the local councils vote next March.
He believes that the Nationalist voter acts differently in a national election, so why the worry? They said the same in 1996 and see what happened then.
And then, the value was that the party was led by a Fenech Adami, and not by a Lawrence Gonzi. Fenech Adami had this aura around him that no shaman could remove. The political landscape today is so very different.
To understand today’s reality one need only take a closer look at the topical issues.
The wrestling match between Super One journalist Charlon Gouder and PN secretary general Joe Saliba is a manifestation of how horrendously undignified the whole political campaigning is turning out to be.
I watched the whole event on TV and I have to say I was gob-smacked by the Prime Minister. There he was, patiently waiting for Gouder to ask him questions. It was very unlike a PM.
Prime Ministers should always look busy, are careful with word counts, rush out of a meeting, give short sound bites, and treat pain in the a** journalists like pariahs.
No, there he was, smiling to the cameras, waiting for the hyenas to pounce. Gouder was having a field day, and then, when the questioning became too long, tedious and unbearable, Joe Saliba, who let us face it – should not have intervened – jumped in.
The scene of a PN secretary general calling a journalist rude and arrogant (“pastaz u arroganti”), and then ineffectually shoving him aside is definitely good TV but bad politics.
Gouder may have been conceited, but let us face it, when you see how journalists from the different political stations and those with a political agenda act, should we be surprised if he acts in such a manner?
As the two argued and Gouder was jostled outside without any sign of bruises or serious bodily harm, the Prime Minister looked on like a helpless referee in one of those American wrestling TV shows.
Then, the inevitable happened, with the two stations providing us with two completely contradictory viewpoints: one world, two new stories and two truths. The rest of the media did a Pontius Pilate and said nothing.
Well, if it was an incident between, say Karl Stagno Navarra and Alfred Sant, needless to say we would have the whole media world in a state of war and the posse of Nationalist lackeys running around like well endowed exhibitionists.
Let us not forget that this not a level playing field.
The PN press hit out at Gouder, who apart from being a journalist is a talented trombone player with a leading band club. Now Charlon is a harmless kind of guy who would not squash a smelly millipede let alone wrestle with the likes of Joe. They, the PN, reminded their ever-diminishing audience that It-Torca, the General Workers Union weekly, had carried an article in their Linji Diretti, their TV column written under a pseudonym of ‘John C Debattista’, hitting out at Gouder and his prosopopoeia as a journalist.
Rumour has it the article was penned by a former Super One journalist with more than an axe to grind, but when contacted by this newspaper, the journalist hotly denied the allegation. He did however joke and suggest he would have expected us to ask him if he agreed with what had been written in the anonymous article.
Which takes me to the second topical event in this sordid world of politics in Malta – the so-called Top Secret report on the PN’s electoral landslide defeat in the European elections. Now, we all know who is happy and who is not with the leak of this report but the point is – why weren’t members of the PN executive aware of the contents of the report?
Political parties treat their elected members with utter condescension, treating them like the body treats the appendix – an appendage. The same applies to the Labour Party, who have also been blessed by the good God and had had the services of that modest and unassuming personality, by the name of Godfrey Grima, to draw up a report on their electoral defeat.
What would I do if were the Nationalist party?
Well, I would play dirty and leak a poll to a PN-leaning Sunday newspaper on the extent of the next Labour victory in the local council elections in the hope that PN sympathisers would consider coming out to vote. Then I would enlist the same trustworthy journalist to try his bloody best to sort of worry the Nationalist electorate that their ‘stubbornness’ is going to lead to a landslide victory for the Reds
The plight of the Qui-Si-Sana residents is a reflection of how blind the Nationalists are turning out to be to their traditional Nationalist heartland. Repeated attempts to meet the Prime Minister and Minister George Pullicino have landed on deaf ears.
It cannot get worse. A petition sent to the Prime Minister by the residents landed in George Pullicino’s lap, who has made it known that he has been taking a very careful look at who signed the petition.
I have one word for George - if you go on like this, you stand a very good chance of not re-electing yourself in the Sliema district.
That the Prime Minister does not find the time to talk to the Qui-Si-Sana residents, but finds the time to answer silly answers to asinine questions is proof that he is taking the wrong kind of advice.
My last word is for the Iraq inferno. The US ambassador who finds the time to attend those burlesque local country and western dances can say what she likes to the Maltese media. But it takes no great mind to conclude that since the Americans landed in Iraq and deposed the Hussein regime, Iraq has become a recipe for internecine killings, maiming and unbelievable sufferings.
The Americans, who can best be identified by their superficial understanding of foreign cultures and history, should have taken a feather out of the military exploits of Alexander the Great.
When he beat the Persian king Darius at Gaugamela he did not jail Darius’s generals or destroy his army but integrated them to pursue his grandiose dream.
The US also have a grandiose dream, to impose their world order on a people who have little comprehension of liberty, tolerance, self respect and have never lived under a democracy.
The US would have done the world a favour if they had kept their armies to Hollywood or else retained the brutal Saddam army, his henchmen and police force, that way they would have averted a blood bath and made some money for themselves from the vast oil reserves.
Now all they have is a mess that continues to confirm our perception of American policy or the absence of it.
sbalzan@mediatoday.com.mt
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