The hunt for the ‘liberals’

In post-divorce referendum Malta, the ‘liberals’ are in vogue. The two main political parties are falling all over themselves to win the hearts and minds of ‘liberals’. Yet, they fail to ground their appeal in any vision that shows signs of a liberal agenda.

The Nationalist Party (PN) “has embarked on a drive to attract liberal candidates for the next general election” and the Labour Party (PL) is the “home of liberal-minded people“. What they mean by the term ‘liberal’ is not clear; like ‘conscience’ and ‘the common good’, it is another term being used and abused.

Labour Party Leader Joseph Muscat seems to define it around a single issue – divorce. The fact that he took a personal stand in favour of divorce, while the party did not, is enough for him to fly the liberal flag. But what the Leader of the Opposition embraces is not liberal democracy; it is consumer politics, in which one’s vote is seen not as a responsibility to choose what is best for the country but as an instrument of self-interest.

It involves a view of voters as consumers rather than rational citizens. Instead of treating them as people you can appeal to with ideas, with the aim of persuading them, you treat them as a static given, as something you need to change your policies to satisfy. And instead of feeling that you can stick to your principles and lead people to a future on the basis of a vision, you need to learn their short-term wants and move yourself to accommodate them.

In his attempt to please everyone Joseph Muscat stands for everything, and nothing. His politics is characterised by a mess of contradictory positions with one main concern – immediate popularity. The issue he raises most frequently is water and electricity bills – the same issue that consistently tops consumer concerns in surveys. He promises he will lower costs for consumers, without presenting a satisfactory or convincing argument to the question ‘how’?

If politics is seen simply as ‘buying’ consumers in a political marketplace, it will soon lose all coherence, and hence, in the longer term, it will lose all credibility. Pure manoeuvre replaces attempts to reflect values. This is a problem that both of the main political parties need to address.

The Nationalist Party are masters of consumer politics, with their ‘rainbow of opinions’. The GonziPN brand built before the last general elections secured the party another term in office, but at what cost? An identity crisis. The party satisfied the personal demands of citizens and lobby groups, even when those demands conflicted with the broader public interest.  As a result, they face a sea of disillusionment and the GonziPN brand has lost its market value because credibility is vital to the success of any brand.

The PN’s Information Director, Frank Psaila, made a public appeal to his party to “forcefully put forward its social liberal agenda”. It may have been a surprise to many that the party actually had one. In fact, he said “more concrete measures need to be taken, not least legislating some ‘much needed and long overdue civil liberties the country can’t afford to postpone any longer’.”

The fact that the party in government for more than two decades has not legislated “much needed” and “long overdue” civil rights, makes it glaringly obvious that these issues are not a priority.

Meanwhile, the party’s Information Director admits the PN’s grass roots are “conservative by nature”. He is promoting a social liberal agenda and at the same time saying that “no way did his proposals mean that the party should alienate its grass roots… but it is a given that unless the party caters for many a social liberal it will have a difficult task come 2013″.

He did not explain how the PN can reconcile the contradictory values that characterise conservatives and liberals. In the meantime, the party in government is clearly entrenched in the conservative camp, led by a Cabinet whose vision is largely limited to the divine kind. The only reason they are showing a sudden consideration of ‘liberals’ is their electoral interests.

In this context, calls for “liberal candidates” smack of spin rather than sound political vision. The rise of illiberalism within the PN has been too strong for their appeal to ‘liberals’ to be credible. If GonziPN wants to reestablish itself, it needs more than a rebranding exercise.

This political manoeuvring by the PN and the PL is one of the factors behind growing disillusion with politics in Malta, which in turn is a major threat to political freedom, as disillusion turns inevitably to cynicism. It is the opposite of what a social liberal agenda sets out to achieve.

The country needs democratic reform to address the inadequacies that are the result of these two parties’ control of political processes. The ‘liberals’ they are now targeting will influence which of them gets the reins… it is now time for the ‘liberals’ to voice their demands and articulate the change they want to see. If they don’t, the political parties will do it for them and the only change that will be seen will be in language, not policies.

Caroline Muscat is a freelance journalist. She was awarded the European Commission's national prize for journalism against discrimination in 2010. Read her blog here.