Pride, trust and independence. Rediscovering ‘Gensna’

This year’s Independence Day celebrations are expected to set the tune for the last two years of this legislature.

After three years of internal strife, self-inflicted own-goals like the MPs’ honoraria saga and a knock-out blow for the party’s leadership in the divorce referendum, surveys have shown the party’s fortunes dipping to an all time low.

In government, the party has also lost its traditional ability to buy consent by financing a generous welfare state and a low tax regime, with the deficits and high economic growth rates which characterised the Fenech Adami era. This has severely limited the PN’s room for political manoeuvre.

The latest shot in the direction of economic bliss was a promise to reduce the highest rate of income tax before the 2008 election, a promise which the party found itself unable to keep in the aftermath of the collapse of the Lehman brothers and the subsequent troubles in the euro area.

But with the divorce issue resolved, and people increasingly scared by what is happening beyond our shores, the PN is smelling an opportunity. It can now focus on issues like jobs and the economy, where its power of incumbency gives it a natural advantage over an untried and untested opposition which still appears weak when it comes to proposing alternative polices.

Still, the message the PN has to sell this time round is not how many jobs and wealth it has created; but how many jobs and wealth the country has retained.

It is not about boasting about how much money people have left in their pockets, but how much money they could have lost if the crisis has hit Malta with Greek intensity. This makes the message harder to sell. 

This was the same problem faced by the incumbent Gordon Brown when facing the inexperienced but fresher Cameron. 

In the UK the ‘experience’ and ‘safe pair of hands’ tactic only worked to the extent of depriving Cameron of an outright victory.

Judging by the statement issued by the party on the eve of the independence celebration; the party has already composed the lyrics for the song which will be drummed into our minds in the next months; one which will celebrate the government’s “heroic effort” in saving the country from the worst excesses of the crisis. 

But the PN has found a more sophisticated way of projecting this message.  Instead of coming across as vain and boasting of its own accomplishments, it is giving the credit to the Maltese workforce for rising up to the occasion.

This was articulated in the upbeat statement issued to inaugurate the celebration: “Despite  the very difficult economic and financial situation in Europe and beyond, Malta managed, thanks to a resilient workforce and sensible economic decisions, to weather well the economic storm and financial meltdown. We should be proud of our country’s achievements.”

To be fair, this propaganda is based on a grain of truth. Had the government not been prudent in the past few years the whole edifice could well have collapsed.

Treading on thin ice

Economic survival is no mean feat – if the difficulties experienced by neighbouring economies like Spain, Greece and Italy are anything to go by – but the party propagandists risk walking on very thin ice. 

For any economic bad news (like Moody’s downgrading of Malta’s credit rating) will seriously dent the government’s credibility on matters, which are technical, and beyond comprehension for a significant part of the electorate.

According to the PN, Moody’s downgrade of Malta’s foreign and local currency government bond ratings, not because Malta failed in any way to address the economic crisis, but because of what is happening in the rest of the world and because we have “a small and open economy exposed to what is happening in Europe and beyond.”

This is only part of the story and ignores the fact that the Moody downgrade also exposes structural weaknesses in public finances, which the PN has not addressed.

The downgrade by a reputable credit agency gives the opposition the chance to exploit the bad news to its advantage and makes the government’s claims less credible. But the opposition could also easily fall in the trap of appearing destructive and unpatriotic.

Hence the PN reference to “puerile partisan bickering, which will get us nowhere.” Still, this also betrays an intolerant twist – it’s a paranoid worldview in which even legitimate criticism ends up being labelled as ‘unpatriotic’.

Moreover, the PN has the advantage that the opposition is incapable of challenging it on its lack of boldness in conducting structural reforms, which would make its economic platitudes more credible.  

Neither is the opposition challenging government to make up for its revenue shortfall by increasing tax on those making mega profits rather than imposing burdens on the average citizens.

It is not clear where Labour stands in the great global debate on whether the crisis is best addressed by cuts or government stimulus financed by taxes on speculators. 

On the other hand, the PN is struggling to find a way to keep the country afloat without having to take any further difficult decisions over the next couple of years.

Rather than pressing on for more rigour, the Opposition simply questions the severity of the only hard measure taken by the government – that of linking electricity tariffs with the international price of oil. 

Surely, it has a point in criticising the lack of transparency in entities like Enemalta. It could well be that our bills also reflect these inefficiencies.

But undoubtedly, the more Labour panders to the myopic segment of the electorate by speaking of reductions in electricity bills at a time when all governments in the world are performing painful surgery, the more fuel it will give to galvanise PN support among more discerning voters.

If the PN succeeds in convincing the electorate that Malta is still moving steadily towards recovery – albeit on very shaky ground – it could be easier for it to depict any pre-electoral promises of fiscal bonanza by the Opposition as superficial, vain and potentially unsettling.

People are already sceptical of promises anyway... more so at a time of international gloom. 

Accounting for City Gate

Should the it choose to harp on about the precarious state of the economy, the PN would find it increasingly harder to justify the financing of the City Gate project, the financing of which remains a mystery to this day.

This means that the cost of this project is not factored in Malta’s public debt.

It also makes the prospect of any pre-electoral tax cuts unlikely. Otherwise, if it does so on the eve of the election, the PN would lose its claim to fiscal prudence, a claim in which it is investing all of its political capital.

In the absence of tax cuts, the government might well concentrate on infrastructural and embellishment projects to generate a feel good factor. Changing the entrance of the capital city, coupled with a concerted effort to beautify the island by investing in more public parks – as envisioned in the recently launched Environmental Policy – could segue nicely from the party’s newfound love of the land. And much of the money already exists in MEPA’s under-utilised urban improvement funds.

A new patriotism

Judging by this year’s theme, the party will frame its achievements in  a patriotic refrain – which could sound reminiscent of the days of ‘Gensna’ and the Mintoff years.

The atmosphere is amplified by the socialist realism of some of the songs participating in the Kanzunetta Indipendenza contest and the MTA billboards showing Malta’s gems and marvels and encouraging us to love our country.

Thankfully, the discourse celebrating national pride is not the xenophobic ‘Malta l-ewwel u qabel kollox’ kind. Instead, the PN boasts of Malta’s giving humanitarian assistance to migrants fleeing Africa to Europe.

“We are proud that time and again, Malta helped save hundreds of lives at sea; of men, women and children who had no other option butto flee from war-torn countries and seek shelter in Europe… we put human lives before any other interest.”

This is a most welcome sign of political leadership in a country where racism has often reared its ugly head. In this aspect, the government scores points among true liberals alienated by the crass populism of the Opposition on this sensitive issue.

Still, these platitudes must be seen in the light of the government’s inhumane 18-month detention policy, its heavy-handed clampdown on riots caused by these conditions and its lack of policies on integrating migrants into the fabric of Maltese society.

Boasting of upholding Malta’s basic international obligation (as if we had another choice) to rescue migrants on the high seas does not absolve the governments’ dismal record on the way these migrants are treated after being saved.  But on these issues, it is only the Greens who give government a hard time.

The PN is also playing the high moral ground card by amplifying its decision to break up with the Gaddafi regime and support the Libyan uprising, thus exorcising its recent support for the regime’s ridiculous €5 billion blackmail on Europe, which was accompanied by the threat of turning Europe “black” with migrants.

The only advantage the PN has on this front was the Opposition’s inexplicable failure to condemn the Gaddafi regime in the past six months, a failure which gives credence to the PN’s campaign associating Labour with the brutal regime. 

But while Libya could turn out to be a great economic opportunity in the coming few years, a prosperous democratic Libya could take years to materialise. It also remains to be seen whether the PN government’s newly found dedication for human rights will feature in its romance with the Libya’s new government.

What seems absent in the PN’s statement is the idea of galvanising support by championing openness and political change.  In this sense the party has lost the spirit of the ‘il bidla tkompli’ years.

Gonzi’s party seems too tired to raise the stakes by championing electoral reform or party financing reform and thus enhance its liberal credentials and possibly expose contradictions in the Opposition.

Blurred boundaries: Party, State and Nation

One big risk facing the PN is that its appeal to nationalism ends up in an equalisation of the national interest with party interest. 

The fact that the PN still celebrates independence day as a partisan event is emblematic of the blurred boundaries between the partisan and the national. Having been in power for a quarter of a century the party has produced a networking system whose survival depends on the party remaining in power. 

Faced with the prospect of defeat some members of this informal network could display a venomous streak, which undermines the party’s claim to the moral high ground.

Its paranoia could also translate in unsavoury elements in its grassroots resorting to hate speech.

Rather than winning over its adversaries to its vision, the party would risk alienating moderate voters which were always the key to its success.

All in all the odds remain pitted against the PN winning the next election. Its one seat majority also remains a potential minefield. 

But with Labour having reached its peak two years before the election and struggling to project a credible alternative, the chances of a late recovery for the PN cannot be written off completely.