Year of resignations

Last Thursday, PL deputy leader Anglu Farrugia became the latest in a veritable spate of high profile resignations - both political and apolitical - that has served to challenge a widespread, popular perception that holders of high office tend to stick to their positions come hell or high water in this country.

Other careers brought emphatically to an end this year - albeit for vastly different reasons - include that of former TV anchorman (also a former Labour minister) Joe Grima, as well as Minister Carm Mifsud Bonnici and former EU ambassador Richard Cachia Caruana: both of whom lost a vote of confidence in parliament.

To be fair, resignations at this sort of level were not entirely unheard of before 2012: in 2010, Justice Minister Chris Said had briefly resigned when he found himself accused of perjury in a child custody case (he would eventually be reinstated after clearing his name).

Even before that landmark case, other high profile resignations had been announced from time to time: former Justice Minister Charles Mangion had stepped down in 1997, after approving a request for a Presidential pardon for a convicted drug trafficker, at a time when his own government had sworn to wage a war on 'drug barons'.

But the spate of resignations we witnessed this year was arguably unlike other individual cases in at least one respect: it seems to spell out a certain evolution in popular expectations of what a public figure - especially a politician - can and cannot get away with in this day and age.

Anglu Farrugia's case is perhaps the best illustration of this state of affairs: even if, at a glance, it is not at all clear whether the official reasons given for the resignation are indeed the real ones.

Officially, Farrugia resigned because of certain comments he made in a recent speech with regard to a member of the judiciary, implying that a magistrate had been politically motivated in reaching certain judgments.

Coming from a man touted as a future justice minister himself, the statement was in itself eyebrow-raising. Yet the timing of the resignation seems to point in a somewhat different direction. Farrugia resigned last Thursday, just days after participating in a televised debate with PN deputy leader Simon Busuttil... which in turn occurred only after an earlier scheduled debate had been cancelled after Farrugia himself failed to show up for his appointment... and the Labour Party unexpectedly chose to field renegade government MP Franco Debono instead.

The jury is still out on whether this was a tactical move by Labour to exploit the so-called 'Franco Debono' effect on the Nationalist Party; or whether it was a ruse to avoid pitting Farrugia against Busuttil.

In the end, Farrugia's performance on TV was substantially below par... suggesting that the resignation may have been dictated by altogether more pragmatic considerations: i.e., that Farrugia had been identified as the 'weakest link' (to borrow the term from the popular quiz show), and therefore sacrificed on the altar of political expediency before any lasting damage could be done.

It is an interpretation borne out in part by Farrugia's own resignation letter, which reverberates with a certain undisguised bitterness throughout: suggesting that the firebrand former police superintendent from Mosta did not voluntarily jump of his own accord but rather that he was 'pushed'.  Indeed, Muscat asked Farrugia to resign.

Add to this the fact that Anglu Farrugia did only step down as deputy leader, but also withdrew from the election altogether, and the impression one gets is that of a metaphorical 'amputation' to remove the 'problematic' limb, before the problem affecting it might spread to other parts of the body.

Even so, what emerges from the debacle is that, at a certain level, gaffes of the kind committed by Anglu Farrugia in recent weeks - be they slurs on the judiciary, or simply failing to cut the mustard in a pivotal televised debate so soon before an election - are no longer considered acceptable in today's political circles.

Here one is forcefully reminded of a similar recent high profile resignation: that of Joe Grima, whose uncouth outbursts regarding a certain priest (in response to a critical obituary on Dom Mintoff), as well as certain derogatory remarks aimed at former EU ambassador Cachia Caruana - were likewise deemed to be unacceptable, coming from someone whose job indirectly made him a public 'face' of Labour.

In both cases there was a sensation that line had been crossed: and by insisting on resignations in each case, Joseph Muscat may have taken an important step in ascertaining that future ministers and other high-level civil servants will have to be altogether more careful in their choice of words and actions.

Naturally it remains to be seen whether such high expectations will be maintained even after the election, or whether they serve the more exclusively practical purpose of creating an election-winning platform. Either way, it is fast becoming apparent that the old laissez-faire attitudes are beginning to come to an end on both sides of the House. And surely this cannot be a bad thing.