Why Konrad Mizzi is the wrong choice for Labour

As the minister responsible for health and energy, Konrad Mizzi retains an aura of technocratic competence, damaged but not shaken by his one big miscalculation when committing his party before the election to complete the LNG power station in a two-year time-frame, as well as the employment of his own wife in a highly paid government post.

As minister he may well redeem himself by fulfilling the promise to convert the country from reliance on oil to cleaner gas, which on its own is a positive accomplishment.

Being responsible for health and energy, two of the most contentious issues facing any government the world over, Mizzi now takes on the party administration at the risk of having too much on his plate.

His strong belief in privatisation may make him an unlikely figure to become the second-in-command of a party with democratic socialist roots. Unlike the intellectual Toni Abela, who was well versed in socialist theory and history, Mizzi projects a business-friendly image who is also equally at ease with Azeri kleptocrats, Chinese state capitalists and private investors in health care.

But that is largely beside the point. The main problem with Muscat’s Labour is not its political pragmatism, but the way such pragmatism was never discussed in its structures. Muscat can constantly change the goalposts: from planned pushbacks to integration policy; from pro-development and pro-hunting to pro-environment; from exploiting xenophobia in Opposition to turning Maltese citizenship into a commodity. The only constant in Muscat’s agenda is an unwavering commitment for social liberalism.

The problem with Mizzi as deputy leader is that it sends the message that the Labour Party belongs to the government and is there to serve the interests of government. It has no role in keeping the government accountable to basic principles. It will undo the illusion that the party has a democratic socialist core beating beneath the Muscatian façade.

I doubt that Mizzi the minister has any interest in any soul-searching on the party’s ideological bearings or policies. He speaks of reaching out to NGOs and disgruntled Labourites. But underlying this concern is mending fences before the election – not an honest debate on the party’s overall direction. His sole interest is in reactivating the party as a powerful electoral machine. Labour is surely not reinventing the wheel. 

The centralisation of power in Castille was one of the reasons many Nationalists felt detached from the party they loved in its more vibrant years in the 1980s when the party debated ideas and set in motion the great changes in Maltese society between 1987 and 1996. That is why the PN under Gonzi was unable to read the signs of the times when it came to issues like divorce and civil unions.

In Labour the change has been even more dramatic. Under Mintoff it was the party firmly led by Mintoff, which led the government. In this sense the government was the vehicle used by the party to transform the country. Unfortunately by the early 1980s it became a vehicle to perpetuate the power of those who represented the party. This blurred the roles of state and party.

With Muscat it is the government and Castille which have taken over the party. By kicking Toni Abela upstairs in a prestigious post and replacing him with Mizzi, Muscat is shaping the party in his image. Surely it is an image which appeals to a segment of switchers used to a PN with similar hegemonic ambitions. But it may irk others who believed in Muscat’s movement of progressives as an agent of change. The fact that Mizzi will not be contested reinforces the perception of a stage-managed party where Muscat calls all the shots.

Labour is becoming a tool to perpetuate the power of Muscat’s inner circle. No wonder Muscat – like Gonzi before him – would also like to appoint non-elected ministers whose loyalty would be towards him, not constituents and activists. Mizzi himself was promoted as a technocrat lent to the party before the election. With Mizzi as deputy leader, Muscat is showing signs that even his party is not immune to the centralisation of power and the obsession with technocracy.