Bulldozing democracy | Alison Zerafa Civelli

The twisted logic that the opposition have tried to impose on the people of Gharghur is nothing short of breathtaking.  Let’s start with the law—its’ very clear. The Local Government Act states that “The Mayor or Deputy Mayor shall cease to hold their office upon a vote of no confidence delivered by a majority of the Councillors in office.” 

When you turn down all of the noise and shouting by the opposition (and there has been a lot), and ask what really happened, it was precisely this.  A majority of the councillors in office voted that they no longer held confidence in the mayor. I am not going to go into the reasons why they lost confidence in the mayor, and I’m sure readers will be able to figure out for themselves what happened.  Instead, the questions that come to my mind at least are the following:

If the opposition disagrees with a law that they themselves wrote when they were in government, why are they so upset about it now? Which part of the law do they disagree with, and how would they propose to amend it? 

What happened is entirely provided for in the law, and when we ask ourselves what really happened—after all is said and done, it was simply that—the sitting PN mayor lost a vote of no confidence.  In any system of governance, especially one where there are specific and agreed provisions at law, to deny such provisions is to deny good governance.  Throwing these provisions out when they are inconvenient would be a betrayal of democracy, and yet Bernard Grech and the PN leadership are only too willing to do so.

Which brings us to the second set of questions.

Why on earth would the opposition leadership chose to deliberately draw attention to what essentially is a problem of their own making? I can understand that they’re not happy with the outcome, but to throw their toys out of the pram with protests and amateur gimmicks stinks of desperation. 

And most incredibly of all, I have to ask, how messed up do you have to be to blame this all on the prime minister? Twisted thinking, yes, but the opposition wants you to think that the prime minister took time out of running the country to somehow destabilise Gharghur local council—all this using members of the opposition! 

The Nationalist Party is still resisting the basic principles of democracy. They elected councillors to speak on their behalf and represent their interests.  If enough councillors felt that, for valid reasons, they had lost their confidence in the mayor, it was their moral and civic duty to act immediately.  This is what they have done.

Now, the leader of the opposition is welcome to second guess Għargħur’s councillors as much as he wants, but to attack their vote, is the real attack on democracy.  It takes true mental gymnastics though to blame it on the prime minister.

Alison Zerafa Civelli is parliamentary secretary for local government