|
The recipe for victory in the general elections was supplied by the secretary general of the Nationalist Party Mr Joe Saliba in The Times recently: “We have a coalition of people from all walks of life. We will fail and lose the election, when this coalition breaks up.”
So far, this coalition is still behind the Nationalist Party and that is why that I tend to agree with those who say that the Nationalist Party will once again win the general elections.
It is not success in the local elections or in the Euro Parliament that guarantees a success in the general elections. These have nothing to do with the general elections: they are just a survey paid by the taxpayer to the party in Government, homework done by us and with our money for the government in order to address its relationship with the voters. Of course, Labour has these minor victories to celebrate but the role of any political party is to win the general election and be in government.
Joe Saliba really hit the nail on the head when he spoke of the coalition that still rallies behind the Nationalist Party. It is the same coalition we saw behind the EU referendum campaign, and the same coalition we are now seeing behind the Euro changeover campaign: a campaign run by people who pretend to be neutral when they form part of the coalition of the Nationalist Party. No wonder Saliba added that as long as there is this coalition, the Nationalist Party will win the next elections.
But Saliba was reported as adding: “to have this coalition, you have to have conflicts”. And this assertion on his part completes the picture puzzle that most of us have been trying hard to put together. No wonder we never understand how people continue get away with murder in this country. It has now all fallen into place. For the party in government to stay at the helm in Malta, it has to have a coalition of people from all walks of life, and to maintain this coalition it has to keep them all happy, because if the coalition breaks up, the party does not win the general elections. So the next time you read how there is a law for the strong and a law for the weak, all you have to do is to check with Saliba if the person/s involved is/are in the coalition he spoke about in his interview on 24 March.
This is very worrying indeed. Worrying for the Labour Party which is not only cursed with a leader whose dodgy election in 1992 was again brought up lately in Lino Spiteri’s recent book, but is also cursed in that, after 20 years in opposition, it still has not yet realized that for any inkling of success in the general elections, all its energies must be devoted to breaking and dismantling the coalition behind the Nationalist Party. There must be a shift in focus for the Labour Party: a shift from what takes place inside the party to what is going on outside Hamrun.
By wasting all its energies within the confines of Mile End, the Labour administration is strengthening the coalition behind the Nationalist Party. And let us be honest, the who’s who of this coalition is no longer a secret. We have witnessed appointments in constituted bodies being promoted to ambassadors, we have witnessed appointments in industry being appointed to chairmen of government bodies, and it is no secret that such appointments by the government are made not on basis of merit, but as gratitude to their allegiance to the Nationalist Party in government.
But it is also worrying for us, the electorate. Are we electing the best party, or are we simply electing the party behind this coalition? In the last 20 years, with the exception of 1996-98, we have elected the party behind this coalition. It is therefore the coalition which deciding the general elections, and not the people. Now whether we call this a coalition, or “friends of friends”, or masonry, I do not care. But I do care that we have a problem and a big one indeed because it is not the voters who are electing their party to government but it is this coalition that is turning the tide and decided who is to stay in power and who is not.
And this is very dangerous indeed. It is dangerous because this coalition portrays itself as independent when it praises or condones the Opposition. It is dangerous because it gives the impression that it has no ties to either of the two major parties, when in actual fact it does. It is dangerous because this coalition pretends to have the country’s interest at heart, when in effect, only pounds, shillings and pence matter.
I invite you to note the chorus of support that this government gets from certain constituted bodies every time a hot issue is debated. It is time to realise who is behind the coalition of people propping up the Nationalist Party. Once this chorus stops playing the government and PN tunes, then that will be the day when this coalition breaks up. Remember the MHRA issue, and its former president Mr Zahra, at a time when the golf course project was shelved? The coalition was rocked to its foundations. Gonzi could not afford to lose the support of Mr Zahra, just as he could not afford to lose the voters the Minister of Tourism. So he came up with a solution by setting up another body under his responsibility, keeping Mr Zahra and Zammit Dimech happy. Therefore, everybody was happy.
So what is the point of having a Nationalist Party and a Labour Party contesting the general elections, when it is this coalition which decides who is to rule this country? They might as well be honest with themselves and us, and come out in the open and tell us that they want to rule this country. They do not have the courage to do that because their role is not to seek what is best for the country, but what is best for their pockets. The situation is not only dangerous but alarming indeed, because we are being taken for a ride by the two major political parties: one by making us believe that country comes before party, and the other by making us believe that it is once again in for another victory, when in effect it is not.
And the reason is simple: Labour has no coalition behind it or at least, the few people it has in its coalition do not hold strategic positions in the country. Its own coalition is not strong enough to combat the coalition of people from all walks of life, mentioned by Joe Saliba, that is behind the Nationalist Party. People often tell me that they can’t understand why mortal sins committed by this government are never exposed whereas the venial sins made by the former Labour governments were exposed in a big way. But now, thanks to Joe Saliba, we have discovered why. It is because of this coalition that is behind the Nationalist government.
“We will fail and lose the election, when this coalition breaks up,” but this coalition gets stronger than ever when an election is in the offing, and Labour is too drunk at Hamrun to even realize that for it to win a general election, it must first realize that there exists this coalition, infiltrate and break it because as Saliba said, only when this coalition breaks up, will the Nationalist Party fail and lose the election.
|
