The PN is right on good governance. But will Labour’s economic success drown out their din?

I’m a supporter of the PN’s good governance pledge but I am also aware that Labour voters are finding it hard to be lectured on political morality by the successors of the Gonzi administration.

Simon Busuttil is keen on telling people his new broom sweeps clean. But others will be quick to tell him that his old brush knows the corners. Or that he was at the heart of Gonzi’s political engine-room when he captained the 2009 European election campaign and when he authored the 2013 general election manifesto, during which he campaigned as deputy leader.

He attempted a cosmetic reshuffle to push veterans onto the backbenches, amongst them eight former ministers (one resigned to be an independent MP, while yet another left the House only to make way for another former minister to be re-elected by casual election).

So for all intents and purposes, Labour voters cannot fathom why the PN’s good governance pledge – a package of 109 proposals to fix the leakages of the Maltese political system – should command their attention now.

In part, the problem lies with history. 25 years of Nationalist administration saw egregious abuses of governance, planning rules, and environmental neglect. Those who will make the effort to remember will easily conjure the 2006 extension of development zones, the largesse to construction magnates like Charles Polidano ‘ic-Caqnu’ from the planning authority, the way Gonzi gave his Cabinet a ‘secretive’ pay rise at the height of the financial crisis, the abuse of public procurement rules through the use of direct orders, or finally the Enemalta oil scandal of 2013.

Busuttil will easily admit to these historical errors but wants to exhort voters to look beyond the Gonzi administration and believe in him as an agent of change. But the polls put Muscat ahead of Busuttil by 11 points in the MaltaToday trust barometer (October 2015), even though “undecided” voters are on the rise and Busuttil’s small gains are closing the wide gap.

And this takes us to the next group of voters, who were sympathetic about the change in administration in 2013 but are questioning how fast Labour has been in jettisoning any pretence at being a model of good governance.

In its current ‘party of state’ mode, the monolithic Labour Party sees nothing wrong in mirroring the way former Nationalist administrations poured out munificence to its own activists and cronies. This surprised cautious ‘switchers’ and floating voters – those who profess no blind loyalty to either party but believe in politicians living up to their end of the bargain – who might not want to abandon Labour by voting for the PN again (as that would imply voting for Gonzi’s heirs), not after having invested in effecting a ‘much-needed change’ in Maltese politics.

While some former PN voters who did the unthinkable in 2013 may find it easy to return to the PN, many of these voters have no time to think of alternatives to the two-party model (the Greens are at their lowest ebb in terms of historical polls).

A sizeable chunk believe their trust in Muscat is reaping its benefits in terms of economic growth, domestic consumption, business environment, tourism numbers, and in a few years’ time, the windfall from the sale of golden passports to the global rich. Even though the foundation of his above-eurozone-average performance lies in the cautious stewardship of PN administrations during the 2008-2009 crisis, it is to the victor that the spoils go.

They also see certain deliverables that are changing society as we speak: free childcare put mothers back into the workplace and saved young families thousands in cash; energy bills were cut ahead of the switchover to LNG; Malta ran to pole position on gay rights, legislating for civil unions and gender identity laws; and in spite of its shortcomings, Labour introduced a Whistleblower’s Act, removed time-barring on political corruption, and a political financing law.

On the other hand, power has sat uncomfortably on Labour’s shoulders and this jars with voters who see through the Potemkin village of ‘meritocracy and transparency’. Hundreds of political appointments were made that were not necessarily based on competence but on a ‘trust basis’ (in some regards, this is a necessary act of governmental administration); the press has been awash with reports of cronyist arrogance; and Muscat has been forced to bleed his Cabinet of various ministers (more could be yet to come in 2016). Recent news that Muscat’s wife is a conciliatory mediator for army personnel in disputes with the top army brass has conjured up Peronist allusions.

Simon Busuttil’s good governance package effectively throws a spanner in the works: it asks critical voters to re-appraise Muscat. Even some of Labour’s inner core are aware that they have been caught napping, but now they are also growing tired of the monkeys throwing peanuts at them. Like the Nationalists before them, they will grow tired of all this good governance guff and demand they be just ‘left alone to do our job’.

“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time,” wrote F. Scott Fitzgerald. Those voters trying to make head or tail of Labour’s opposing directions on governance and economic progress might be the brainiest of the lot. 

Come 2018, or even maybe 2017, Muscat could be set to win re-election by voters who – weary though they may be of the governance quagmire bogging down Labour’s goodwill – still believe this administration is energetic enough to keep the economic motor running smooth. They include voters – mainly from the world of entrepreneurial self-reliance – who benefited under the PN’s network of patronage and found a new home under Labour, and wanting to milk the political machine for as long as it keeps giving.

Even Busuttil knows that Maltese voters tend to give short shrift to good governance when the good times are rolling. They will vote by the same principle that kept so many Nationalist administrations in power: proven competence as against untrustworthy pretenders.