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After 20 years in power the Nationalist Party is experiencing what Italians call “il logorio dell’ potere” – an attrition which is wearing away the party’s morale and corroding its engines.
 Despite noting the signs of “logorio” in the Gonzi-led government, former Nationalist minister George Bonello Dupuis still thinks the Nationalist Party will win the next election, mainly by default. But he sees parallels between the demise of the Borg Olivier government and the current state of the Nationalist Party.
Back in 1971 when he first got elected as a PN deputy after a short spate in Toni Pellegrini’s Christian Workers Party, George Bonello Dupuis saw clear signs of attrition. According to Dupuis, Mintoff managed to win the 1971 election because he was perceived to be a dynamic leader. On the other hand the Nationalist government appeared tired. “They lacked ideas. They were suffering from what the Italian call logorio del potere. Power weakens you. They were no longer sprightly. That’s why the people chose Mintoff.”
But Mintoff’s election was a blessing in disguise for the Nationalist Party. Bonello Dupuis recalls the camaraderie uniting the new leaders of the Nationalist Party. He recalls that many of the George Borg Olivier’s ministers had lost their drive. “Many former ministers did not even participate in debates in parliament. I was shocked. How could they lead the party when they lacked ideas?”
But is the same logorio which brought the Borg Olivier government down in 1971 now affecting the PN after two decades in power? “Yes… it happens when you start taking things for granted. They always say ‘we will take care of this and that’, but they procrastinate.”
One case in point which irks Bonello Dupuis is the yacht club controversy – a club in which his son Etienne has a leading role. “If Duminku Mintoff was in power he would just say this is what is to be done. You cannot kill the yacht club. It is good for the Maltese and for tourism.”
Coming from Bonello Dupuis, who despises all that Mintoff stood for, such a comparison is damning.
Surely the long spell in opposition in the 1970s and 1980s had given the Nationalist Party the chance to rejuvenate itself and to be fully prepared for the tasks of government. The former minister attributes the successes of post-1987 PN led governments to the hard work of the party’s new leadership when still in opposition. “We knew what we were doing. We had been preparing ourselves for the whole 16 years spent on the opposition benches.”
His recollection of the state of the nation in 1987 is horrid. He recalls that the airport lacked a carousel for luggage. “Luggage were simply thrown at passengers,” he observes. The telephone system was in such a pitiful state – one could not make a phone call without hearing someone on the other line. “Sending a message by pigeon was easier than phoning someone. It was hopeless. Malta had three different systems of lines which were integrated together. All this because Mintoff had found a cheap deal.”
According to Dupuis, investment in financial services and tourism would have been impossible without the introduction of digital phones by former Minister Pierre Muscat, and the construction of a new power station.
Yet the MLP still boasts that it had left the finances of the country intact. Bonello Dupuis disagrees. “The first thing I discovered as Finance Minister was that the former government had allocated Lm25 million to former Prime Minister Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici, who was free to spend this sum of money as he liked in order to gain votes.”
He also boasts of reducing the deficit from Lm45 million to a bare Lm5 million in his first year. He acknowledges that the MLP had left a considerable sum of money in the so-called posterity fund. “We used this money to finance the much needed public works like the new airport, the new power station and the new telephone system”
But was the spending spree of the 1987-1996 PN governments fuelled by a “money no problem” attitude which led to the accumulation of the country’s deficit? Bonello Dupuis disagrees. “I’ll show how money was not a problem for us at that time. Before we were elected the government used to collect Lm42 million from income tax. I decreased the income tax rate from 65 to 35 per cent. Yet I managed to collect Lm84 million –double the amount previously collected.”
Throughout his political career Bonello Dupuis always stuck to the principle that “the less people pay in tax the more willing they are to declare their incomes.” He regards the income tax reform as his greatest achievement as Finance Minister. Popularisation, a term he prefers to privatisation, is also one of his accomplishments. “I wanted the people to have a share in the banks. I did not call this process privatisation because I did not want a few Maltese rich men to reap all the benefits and throw the others overboard. I wanted everyone to have a share. Today there are 60,000 shareholders.”
He also boasts of being the one who first proposed a Maltese Stock Exchange in the PN’s 1987 manifesto. “At that time I found a lot of opposition from the party’s executive. They did not have a clue on what this meant. Just see how many people have now become rich by becoming shareholders of banks like HSBC, Lombard and Bank of Valletta.”
But despite these successes, in 1992 Bonello Dupuis lost his place as Finance Minister. “The Prime Minister had more trust in John Dalli, even if it was misplaced.”
Instead, he was given the ministry for economic services which still included the banks. “One of my achievements was strengthening the banking system. Mintoff used the banks to suck money. I stopped this and allowed them to accumulate money.”
But still the PN failed to do any justice with those who had shares in the National Bank of Malta, which was nationalised by Mintoff. The former minister now regrets this. “It’s true. They are quite right to expect justice.”
Despite the reshuffle, Bonello Dupuis thinks that there was no change between his and Dalli’s fiscal policy. He also agreed with the introduction of VAT and goes as far as claiming credit for its introduction. “It was me who had proposed the inclusion of VAT in the electoral programme in 1987. It’s a tax on spending. The more one spends the more one pays. It is just.”
Taxation is one of Bonello Dupuis’ pet subjects and income tax was always his bête noire. As a leading exponent of the Christian Workers Party in the 1960s he had proposed its abolition. The PN was to adopt this proposal before the 1971 election. Bonello Dupuis recalls being surprised with the PN’s change of heart on this issue.
“The Nationalist Party had harshly attacked me for proposing the abolition of income tax. This was my biggest surprise in the party’s congress in 1970. But they still had no clue on how to remove income tax.”
Bonello Dupuis boasts that his suggestion to abolish the income tax was part and parcel of his vision of Malta as a tax haven, outside the European Union. “I had studied different economic systems and came up with concrete proposals.”
He sought to imitate Andorra, Luxemburg, Campione d’Italia, Liechtenstein, the Channel Islands, the Isle of Man and the French overseas territories, all of which were developing as hubs for financial services. He believes that Malta had all the ingredients, such as a central geographic location, a well-educated public and a good civil service, to achieve this aim. “What it lacked under Mintoff was a benign government.”
Unlike other hubs like the Cayman Islands in the West Indies, Malta had also the advantage of being centrally located. But before 1987 it lacked a good system of communication. According to Dupius, Malta had missed a golden opportunity. “When civil war erupted in Lebanon, Malta could have attracted many companies and made lots of money. But how could we have done so with the poor telephone infrastructure we had?”
Ironically his dream to turn Malta in to a tax haven was dealt a mortal blow by Malta’s membership in the European Union. Originally, Bonello Dupuis was firmly against EU membership. “My vision of Malta’s future was that of a tax haven. This was incompatible with membership in the EC.”
He recalls that when in 1970 George Borg Olivier had signed the first agreement with the European Economic Community he had to promise them that Malta would never became a tax haven. “Of course they did not want Malta to embark on this path. Even the British government did not want Malta to become a tax haven in order to protect its own tax havens in the Isle of Mann and Channel Islands. Neither did EU members like France, Italy and the Netherlands who had their own havens.”
But eventually he changed his mind. “When I saw what Mintoff had done to the country, I simply said, forget tax havens. I simply did not want my children and grandchildren to live under his rule. The European Community offered a guarantee for democracy. That is why I voted in the party’s executive in favour of Malta joining the EEC.”
Nowadays, George Bonello Dupuis would not dare propose the abolition of the income tax. “Had we done that in 1966, we could have made it. But now it’s impossible. It does not even make sense with Malta as a member of the European Union where all countries have income tax.”
Despite abandoning his dream of Malta as a tax haven he still sees room for the reduction of the tax burden. He proposes that Malta introduce a 10 per cent corporation tax. “At present companies do not pay tax. They only pay tax through their shareholders. Let’s introduce it at a rate of 10 per cent.”
But to compensate for this new tax Bonello Dupuis is proposing a reduction on the tax burden on individuals from 35 per cent to 30 per cent. “This tax will mainly affect the big banks like HSBC. Taking Lm3.5 million from this bank’s Lm35 million in profits will not impoverish it.”
Despite his original reservations on EU membership, Bonello Dupuis gives a positive assessment on Malta’s first three years as an EU member. “The fact that we have to abide by the financial discipline of the EU is very important. Now we have to discipline our spending.”
In a political career which spanned over four decades, Bonello Dupuis worked under both George Borg Olivier and Eddie Fenech Adami. But he has only observed Lawrence Gonzi from a distance. He describes Gonzi as “an upright leader and a very good organiser,” and Eddie Fenech Adami as “both an upright leader and a deep thinker.”
“Eddie saw the bigger picture. He was able to foresee that the effect of moving one stone on the stability of the whole rubble wall. He was a man of respect. I helped Eddie to become leader as I realised his great qualities.”
Yet despite Eddie Fenech Adami’s anointment of Lawrence Gonzi as his successor, Bonello Dupuis’s choice of candidate to succeed Fenech Adami would have been Louis Galea. “He was my preferred candidate. I have known him since he was very young. Unlike Gonzi he was one of us. Gonzi was a Johnny-come-lately. He did not cut his teeth in iron as we did in the 1980s. Between us (Dupuis and Galea) there was a certain camaderie which can never be cancelled.”
He recalls Louis Galea as the “motivator of the party. He used to make things move. He used to employ people and organise campaigns while I found the finances.”
He is proud of his role as the PN’s treasurer and fundraiser in the 1980s. According to Bonello Dupuis, he found the party poorer than a church mouse. “But it was really money no problem at that time. We raised money to make a TV station in Sicily, a radio station in Malta, to publish a newspaper and to open political clubs in every town and village.”
The defence of democracy in the 1980s was a formidable rallying cry as the EU membership battle cry in the 1990s. Bonello Dupuis acknowledges that nowadays the party lacks an effective battle cry. “Today all we can say is ‘May God help us get rid of Fredu Sant’. Because there is no big issue.”
He notes that the MLP under Sant has lost the intellectual element it had under Mintoff. “Under Mintoff there were more intellectual people like Lino Spiteri and Joe Cassar. Today there is no one like that.”
He describes Alfred Sant’s party as a “party of sycophants” which has “very low chances of winning.” Despite his low opinion of opposition leader Alfred Sant, Bonello Dupuis credits him for dissociating the party from violence. “But still some of his underlings have a tendency to violence. There is a small risk of nasty things happening if the MLP gets to power. I don’t think Sant will allow this. But things might get out of his control. They have been out of power for far too long and pent up feelings can explode like a pressure cooker.”
Bonello Dupuis still feels that he has something to contribute to the country. “But that’s not what the country’s administrators think. They think that we are political has-beens who are no longer relevant to the times. They are all professors who know better than us.”
Does anybody in the present government heed his advice? “There is one particular minister, Louis Galea who still respects me and calls me.”
Although he sees the signs of corrosion in the PN after being in power for two decades, he still thinks that a PN victory is likely because the MLP is not credible. He also thinks that the current wave of disgruntlement against the government is not always justified. “We have one of the best health systems in the world. People still grumble for waiting for half an hour for an appointment. How can people grumble when they are given free medicines and care?”
He also thinks that disgruntlement is inevitable. “When people become used to eating bread, they want cake. When they get fed up of cake they start demanding the icing on the cake. When they get used to that, they want a cherry on the cake.”
According to the former minister the people were really deprived in the 1980s when they could not even buy foreign wines, Mars bars, or Sicilian pasta. He recalls one of his gimmicks in the 1980s when during a meeting in Old Bakery Street, a boxload of Mars chocolate wrappers were thrown on the crowd.
“I told the crowd, that if they elect us in government they will have chocolate in the wrapper.”
But will past memories of Mars bars be enough to revive the PN’s prospects? Bonello Dupuis seems to think so. |
