The politics of contempt

An unelected network of powerful persons around the Prime Minister, being referred to as the GonziPN clique, even by those inside the PN, holds the rest of the country in contempt.

If the country is to have a new lease of democratic life, this clique needs to be voted out of power. Gonzi must be voted out of power as a prime minister and as a leader of the PN. It is up to citizens in the country to vote Gonzi out of power as prime minister and it is up to the PN councillors to change their leader.

The GonziPN clique has tried to discredit MP Franco Debono's criticism of the "unelected few" who wield power as the ravings of an insane, infantile and power hungry individual.

But Franco Debono has raised issues that need to be addressed if we are really going to have a modern democratic society. His own government ignored him. It is only now, as he does all he can to cling on to power that PN's leader Lawrence

Gonzi is signalling to Debono that the PN will be ready to take action about what he has been saying for at least four years. During these four years he was promised several times that action would be taken but no action was taken.

Debono has called for constitutional changes to hold people in office to account. He said that those who hold office and fail in their duties should resign. As an example he mentioned the wrong decision to have the Delimara power station extension work on heavy fuel oil and the public transport reform fiasco. Debono criticised Gonzi for defending incompetent ministers and excluding those who criticised them, even from within the PN parliamentary group.

Debono was also very critical of the Gonzi cabinet decision to raise their salaries by €500 a week behind the people's backs, without informing the PN parliamentary group and without seeking approval from parliament.

He called for new democratic institutions and processes, a new way to elect the President, a new state broadcasting set up that is really national, balanced and impartial so that parties can do away with their partisan stations and PBS stops being used as the mouthpiece of the party in government. He also called for new libel laws to protect the reputation of persons.

Debono has been insisting rightly that a Prime Minister has to gain support day by day and not take his MPs for granted or steamroll over them.

Debono said that instead of thinking how to limit the power of MPs one should think of how to hold government and ministers to account as they spend the money of tax payers. MPs represent tax payers in parliament and it is their duty to hold government to account.

If the prime minister has people who advise him and show no respect towards MPs, this creates problems for the country. "MPs are not playthings in the hands of those who wield power around the prime ministers. If an advisor treats an MP like a plaything, imagine how he treats citizens."

When the vote was taken on the no confidence motion presented by the Opposition, the PN leadership was very angry that Franco Debono abstained. They wanted him to vote with government against the Opposition motion. He refused even if they kept on trying to change his mind till the last minute.

The party leadership did not want to scrape through again thanks to the casting vote of the Speaker.

The PN leadership knew that MP Franco Debono was determined to abstain and sent several parliamentary colleagues to try and mollify him. But he stood firm.

Since he withdrew his pivotal support for Prime Minister Gonzi's government, which has a one seat majority, the PN tried different approaches to make him reconsider or resign. PN bloggers and opinion writers were told to attack him viciously.

Even the PBS was used to ridicule him.

He was projected as being insane, infantile or hugely ambitious, not just to become a minister but also a prime minister. All the issues he had brought up in the last four years were ignored and his attitude was described even by the Prime Minister as if it were a "personal" crisis for Debono and not a political one for the government.

The PN organized a petition in his district to call on him to resign but it did not find enough support and was forgotten. Then the PN parliamentary group also called on him to resign.

When these PN tactics did not break him they tried a different approach - to woo him back. So several people approached him and told him that the PN door was wide open for him again, he had a big contribution to make to the party and that his agenda could only be carried out with the PN in government.

But MP Franco Debono held firm and refused to vote with government against the Opposition motion, depriving Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi of his one seat majority. It remains to be seen how Debono is going to vote on the money bills that are already on the parliamentary agenda.

Evarist Bartolo is shadow minister for education.