The limits of Muscat’s political theatre

Joseph Muscat is no political novice.  He clearly does not want Michael Falzon to remain an albatross around his neck and wants to avoid Lawrence Gonzi’s fate when he failed to heal the wounds left by John Dalli’s forced resignation from Foreign Affairs Minister in 2004.

Like Dalli, Falzon was a leadership hopeful. Like Austin Gatt in the PN, Falzon was one of the generals who led the PL’s electoral machine. He also commands the loyalty of the party's foot soldiers who are indispensable in electoral campaigns.

He was trusted enough by Muscat to be given one of the most sensitive of government portfolios: government property and MEPA. Muscat’s political judgement was to put Falzon in charge of the two most sensitive areas where political and business interests meet too often. Probably it was not a choice made by accident, considering Falzon’s professional relationship with leading developers.

Falzon also presided over an overhaul of planning structures and laws that made them less transparent and more accommodating to speculators.  Moreover, after having been put by Muscat in such a sensitive post, Falzon is also privy to information which can be potentially toxic for Muscat.

Muscat had three choices with Falzon after the damning NAO and IAID reports: retain Falzon as if nothing happened, sack him and condemn him – or sack Falzon while still paying him homage. Muscat preferred the third option, keeping Falzon on as a backbencher and potential candidate in the next general election. 

Muscat’s calculation is that he can’t afford to sow the seeds of disunity in his party. But by being unwilling to pay the cost of his decisions, he is not only contradicting himself but may be sowing the seeds of implosion in an electoral bloc that includes tribal loyalists, greedy ‘Gaffarenas’ expecting their rewards, as well as floating voters who want good governance and meritocracy.

Simple logic dictates that you do not pay tribute to someone you have just fired. You do not pay homage to someone who shows no repentance; someone who had just lashed at the NAO report, conveniently forgetting the equally damning conclusions of the IAID report conducted by a unit that falls under the Office of the Prime Minister’s jurisdiction.

And Muscat’s platitudes on good governance remain irreconcilable with his own system of government. 

Before the scandal was uncovered by the media, the general impression was that Gaffarena (who had his petrol station sanctioned months after Muscat was elected to power) was another switcher in the government’s good books.

The problem goes beyond Falzon and Gaffarena. For if the Lands Department is going to be reformed on the same lines as MEPA, we may well end up removing political responsibility of the individual minister while retaining political influence to more disposable (and expensive) political appointees.

And instead of strengthening good governance in MEPA, Muscat’s government has so far weakened the authority’s autonomy from the minister who can fire the CEO at will, and to make submissions on plans and policies anonymously. (The original draft of the law which gave minister the power to dismiss MEPA Chief Executive was changed during the plenary sessions. The approved law states that the Executive Chairman can only be dismissed through a parliamentary resolution)

And the same government that wants to confront the good governance issue head-on is the same one dishing cheap ODZ land to Sadeen without public tender.

Ultimately what we are assisting is a government trying to avoid implosion by acting contradictory roles.

Even at local level we see the same thing: Marsaskala council supports the development of 18,000 sq.m of ODZ land at Zonqor, but opposes a 2,000 sq.m agritourism project in Munxar.

The strategy of saying different things to different people predates the general election when Labour courted both developers and environmentalists. The problem however is that Muscat is no longer speaking to different niches of voters separately but the entire nation.

His only advantage is country’s natural cycle of alternation which favours his re-election in 2017-2018. Clearly any opposition, more so the one which spent 25 years in government, needs two consecutive terms to reinvent itself in a credible way and garner the talent it needs to govern. 

We are still living in a surreal situation where while the Opposition needs more time to re-invent itself, the party in government has come to look too similar to the PN as it was after 25 years in power.