|
James Debono notes similarities and stark differences between Lawrence Gonzi’s concluding speech at the Nationalist Party conference last week with Alfred Sant’s own closing address at the Malta Labour Party conference in January
While Lawrence Gonzi’s backdrop of greenery and young party councillors inspired serenity, Sant’s plainer backdrop – with its “New Beginning” slogan and a static picture depicting a smiling family – was definitely corporate, but lifeless.
Over the past months, the MLP has moved miles ahead of its darker days when slogans like “Inizjattiva u Wens” were written in Gothic fonts. But despite the MLP’s sober look, the PN has once again recovered its edge when it comes to image and style.
Back in January, the scene of party delegates waving red cardboards instead of handkerchiefs was hilarious: a reflection old Labour spontaneity which refuses to die down.
On the other hand, Gonzi’s audience of middle class councillors, clad in suits, was more composed than its gregarious MLP equivalent. And while MLP delegates were regaled with an hour-long hard-hitting speech which opened the party’s successful local elections campaign, Gonzi’s more fluent speech lasted barely 42 minutes.
And yet, choreography apart, one is also struck by the similarities between the two leaders. Both, for instance, lack the aura of patronising grandeur characteristic of an Eddie Fenech Adami or a Dom Mintoff. And although Sant singled out Gonzi 25 times in his speech, both party leaders refrained from virulent attacks on each other. Joe Saliba’s barb against Alfred Sant’s facelift jarred with Gonzi’s more statesmanlike approach to his political nemesis: in fact, the Prime Minister simply ignored Sant altogether.
More significantly, neither Sant nor Gonzi made a single reference to irregular immigrants. Coming a few days after 57 immigrants lost their lives, and two days after 27 other migrants were rescued after clinging to a Maltese tuna pen, this lapsus was even more notable. Yet even last week Sant remained silent on the subject of this ongoing human tragedy.
One has to recognise that in the past, Lawrence Gonzi made clear references to the plight of immigrants. But this only makes his present silence on this issue all the more deafening. With a consensus of silence uniting both government and opposition, one should not be surprised that so many people are believing the racist hype.
Although the word “family” was mentioned 16 times by Gonzi and 48 times by Alfred Sant in his longer speech, neither of the two political leaders mentioned divorce – a civil right granted in all countries of the world except Malta and the Philippines.
Yet unlike Gonzi, Alfred Sant made a clear reference to different forms of families, thus reflecting a more open and secular mentality. Sant singled out single parent families and separated couples, stopping short of mentioning gay couples.
While Sant emerges as more progressive than Gonzi on family matters, Gonzi succeeds in projecting a greater commitment towards the environment. Sant did not even mention the environment once in his hour-long speech. Yet Gonzi’s green conversion comes very late in the day, and after two consecutive U-turns on hunting and golf courses.
Gonzi’s delivery in the PN’s general council offered a sharp contrast with last year’s image of a grim Prime Minister defending the extension of development zones in the face of a green rebellion which saw thousands marching in Valletta against the infamous rationalisation.
There was no mention of last year’s extension of development zones and the approval of local plans which intensified development in the urban cores of the PN’s middle class heartland.
Probably Gonzi will go down in the PN’s history as the first leader to speak loud and clear against the same building contractors who ironically have made loads of cash due to his own government’s past decisions.
In his speech, Gonzi expressed popular anger against of contractors “who do not have the decency to control their work to ensure that neighbors are not disturbed.”
He went as far to steal the limelight from Alternattiva Demokratika, which consistently opposed the rationalisation and the golf course development, by claiming that “it’s only to the PN’s credit that the environment is at the centre of the country’s agenda.”
Ironically, both leaders read the mood for change.
Unlike Sant, who mentioned the word “change” 20 times, Gonzi did not dare mention the word once. Instead he emphasised the need to look forwards instead of backwards. Surely he is not resting on PN’s laurels going as far as to say that the “past is a closed chapter”, and that his party “should look ahead, to where we are going from now onwards.”
Yet this exposes Gonzi’s dilemma. By retaining the same faces around him, he represents continuity with a government which has been around for 20 whole years. And by reinventing the PN as a centre-left party at the very last moment, Gonzi risks alienating those who boast of having clad their fists in steel in the 1980s.
For most of the time, party officials were outside the camera’s view. Constantly in the line of vision, standing behind Gonzi, were two young women who looked like the girl next door. The PN is clearly hedging its bets on the appeal of its leader, rather than a 20-year-old baggage that surrounds him.
But Sant faces his own internal troubles. Back in January, he tried mending his party’s leadership rifts by spending nearly a quarter of an hour thanking party stalwarts including the two deputy leaders: Michael Falzon and Charles Mangion. But five months later, the same rifts between the Sant and Falzon camp have come back to haunt him.
Sant’s counter attack in the past weeks was an overdone offensive to discredit Minister Censu Galea. It looks like another leaf taken from the 1996 script, when for months on end Sant lashed at Michael Frendo for alleged irregularities in the Transport Ministry.
Back in January, corruption did not feature in Sant’s speech. Five months later, Frank Portelli’s revelations on Mater Dei and the Censu Galea’s tape recordings offer a welcome distraction from Sant’s internal troubles.
What is emerging clearly is that both leaders are gearing for a Presidential election where image counts at the expense of substance.
By projecting himself as an idealist who salutes artists and invites people to paint the country’s future on a canvass, Gonzi amplifies the contrast with Sant’s detached managerial image. Sant’s Blairite wave to his mother in last January’s conference was a rare occasion where he showed a more human aspect of his character.
Yet image apart, both leaders remain unconvincing when it comes to economic sustainability – one of the PN’s new buzz-words.
Gonzi could rest on his laurels for having put the country’s finances on the right track. But after years of austerity, Gonzi now promises to spend more on health and education while Sant simply promises that he would simply cut the lard while promising tax cuts. |
