A left-wing presidency for Malta?

I am not interested in the strategic partisan reasons why Marie Louise Coleiro Preca will become President of Malta.

In party politics such nominations are always characterised by various, possibly over-determining factors. No party - big or small - is immune to such maneuvering.

What I am interested in is the effect of such a Presidency.

Two alternative readings - among many other possible readings - come to mind.

First: That with Coleiro Preca as President, this role is being trusted to someone with a left-wing political background (more in the economic sense of the term than in the liberal sense), and that Malta's strategy against poverty and social exclusion will be elevated to that of a national priority.

In this sense, Malta's welfare state will be guarded by somebody who truly believes in social justice.

Second: That the role of President will remain ceremonial, and the Labour government will parcel out the egalitarian aspects of its policies to the President, who will merely act as a missionary for charity.

This would possibly weaken Malta's welfare state, and social rights will be increasingly replaced by voluntarism. The attempt to reconcile the irreconcilable - neo-liberalism with social justice - would have experienced an implosion.

But it's the ideological orientation of the appointee to replace Coleiro Preca as Minister for Social Policy that will perhaps confirm or quash such a hypothesis.

I hope that effect of Coleiro Preca's Presidency will be somewhere close to the first reading above.

Her left-wing (economic) credentials are surely an asset in this regard, in a political world increasingly characterised by populism, careerism, technocracy and/or bland wishy-washiness.

My congratulations to Marie Louise Coleiro Preca.