What’s to become of Jason?

Published: March 11, 2008 at 11:21am

I heard rumours of his resignation, but they’re probably too good to be true. He’s probably one of those monkey people – the kind who won’t let go of one branch before they’re safely clinging onto another. So first he’ll find another job, and then he’ll allow himself to be forced out.

Maybe he can go back to plants, because they don’t talk back and always stand around in silent admiration.

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Alternattiva Demokratika TVFull marks for perseverance, but sometimes you just have to know when the time has come to give up and let it go. AD has spent the last two decades hunting around for the miracle cure that will give it a seat in government. Now it’s electoral reform and a television station to get its message across.

Oh come on. There’s only one factor that will make people vote AD, and it’s not electoral reform or the mass media. This is the desire to vote for the party because you like their people and their message and believe they can make a difference to your life. Not enough people believe AD can make a difference in parliament, except for the dreamers with their talk of coalition this and that – and those who are cynical about it are the ones who are right. You may get angry about that if you support AD, but it doesn’t change a blind bit of anything.

Tal-pepe types who think like Lejber invidjuzi

AD’s stronghold, if you can call it that, is Sliema and Swieqi, for the same reasons that Bormla is the stronghold of the Labour Party. Why? It’s called identification. Sliema people identify with Harry, a typical Sliema boy (another one from the parocca ta’ Stella Maris). They don’t identify AT ALL with Carmel Cacopardo, and when Wenzu and Toni were AD’s figureheads, Sliema types ran a mile. I can say this with impunity because I too am from the parocca ta’ Stella Maris and lived in Sliema for the first 26 years of my life: there is a Sliema type that can be just as driven by envy, bitterness, spite and hdura as your typical Labour supporter. The only reason this type doesn’t vote Labour is because it’s too embarrassing to be associated with all those hamalli and criecer. The thinking and general attitude, however, is the same.

This is a quote from a tal-pepe Sliema lady who lives in Qui-Si-Sana, militates against the possibility of a car-park there, has decided like her fellow-thinkers and against all the evidence that it is yet another Albert Mizzi plan to take over the world, and who didn’t vote last Saturday (not even for AD) despite the efforts of the prime minister to convince her otherwise (if I were him, I wouldn’t have dragged myself to that level and would instead have given her and those who think like her a few suggestions as to what they could do with their voting document):

‘You know, the thing that really bothers me is that these people make so much money.’
Well, at least she had the guts to say it, instead of dressing up her envious resentment as concern for the environment. With certain kinds of Sliema types, making money and being successful is considered to be as much of a crime as it is in Bormla. U hallini – I’m so glad I left the town because I have as much in common with people who think like as I do with Bormlizi who vote Lejber. I am happy to be surrounded by farmers because they recognise the value of hard work, link hard work to results, are more focussed on making the most of what they have than on what others have and are not rife with spite. Hence, it is not a coincidence that with the exception of one family, everyone around here identifies with the Nationalist Party and votes for it.

Others didn’t vote because, although they are not worse off in real terms, and may actually be much better off than they were five years ago, they feel relatively worse off than their competitor, neighbour or associate, who seems to have more than they do. They vote (or don’t vote) not to gain more for themselves, but to break off what they see as the lucrative or prestigious connections of the people they envy. This is what they mean when they say ‘teaching them a lesson’. It’s not the ministers they want to teach a lesson, but the individuals who excite their envy. These are the people who talk about ‘arrogance’ all the time. By arrogance, this is what they mean – they think that some people are getting more than they are (more exposure, more money, more contracts, or more high life – who knows?).

Tajba din – they refuse to vote for Gonzi because of a car-park, and don’t mind punishing the entire country with Sant as prime minister as a consequence. L-aqwa li m’ghandhomx car-park ma’ patatthom. You don’t have to come from a sqaq in Bormla to have tunnel vision, I can tell you.

Aghmilna bye-bye, please, Arnold

As for that Arnold Cassola – well, I don’t know. What kind of opportunist uses his dual nationality to stand for election in two countries simultaneously, deciding which seat to take up and which to discard (if elected), according to which is more convenient and possibly lucrative for him?

I don’t know why people take this man seriously, instead of seeing him for what he is. Imagine if he were a politician with the Labour Party or the Nationalist Party, and did the same opportunistic thing. AD would have a lot to say about that, but it’s two weights and two measures with them. They think they can’t do any wrong, not even when their leader steadfastly refuses to fill in 37 VAT returns, despite being given the kind of special treatment that others don’t get, then still demands a presidential pardon.

And excuse me, but where is AD going to get the funds to finance a television station? Donations from contractors, maybe? Arnold Cassola’s salary? These people are totally detached from reality. They appear to have no idea what’s involved in running a television station, and more to the point, with their leader’s cavalier attitude to money, they seem not to have performed a cost-benefit analysis. The exercise would calculate the required capital expenditure and running costs and overheads, and also the expected benefits, and work out whether the costs justify the benefits.

The long goodbye

Harry Vassallo is in the newspapers again today, trying to come to terms with the end of his political career. ‘AD’s result was no shock to us. It was a surprise however, to those who imagined that even if they did not vote for AD, the party would have still somehow made it to Parliament. We were taken for granted,’ he told The Malta Independent. Oh dream on. This is just too irritating. I think what people have realised in this election, above all else, is that if you want X to be prime minister, and not Y, then you have to vote for X’s party – no fooling around with your vote. All it would have taken in this election to give us Sant as prime minister was 1,500 more navel-gazers. Thank God for all those people who flew in to Malta, voted for the PN, and left – that’s all I can say. We owe them a big one.

I think people have also realised now that a seat in parliament for AD can achieve precisely zilch, except an MP’s salary for the person who gets it and a reason for being for the organisation that backs up the person in that single seat. With one seat, you can’t legislate – and quite frankly, all this talk about ‘acting as a check on the rest of parliament’ is just so much unbelievably arrogant nonsense. Why should we expect an AD MP to police the other 64 MPs when AD can’t even police its own leader? Wenzu Mintoff had a seat in parliament as an AD MP for three whole years, and it made no difference to anything.

In Malta, the vast majority of electors (at least 90%) insist on choosing their government. That’s not a bad thing, but a good one. AD complains about it, and attributes ulterior motives or pressures, but in this AD is wrong. Choosing your government is the wisest thing to do, because you have to live with that decision for five years.




11 Comments Comment

  1. Dorrie Galea says:

    The ‘Partiti z-zghar’ had only one motive – to put a spanner in the works.

  2. Kieli says:

    Given Harry’s pre-election Hoo-Haa regarding his jail conviction for failing to comply with VAT regulations, it would be opportune for you to once again post the relevant media release by the Min. of Finance on eve of ‘reflection day’ which in the event never saw the light of day except on the DCG website. The MoF statement puts Harry’s claims of victimisation into their true perspective.

  3. Jack says:

    “All it would have taken in this election to give us Sant as prime minister was 1,500 more navel-gazers.”

    Actually – it was even closer than that.

    All that was required for AS to clinch victory was to convince half of those “1,500 navel-gazers” plus one (751 votes)to vote MLP.

    Securing 750 of those 1500 would have neutralised the PN advantage to zero and getting an additional one would have swayed the result in MLP’s favour.

  4. Jack says:

    Dear Daphne,

    I am a bit perplexed that, throughout this commentary, you have resorted to equating Mr. Jason Micallef to a peacock.

    The latter is a particularly noble and spectacular creature and has several other laudable characteristics.

    Perhaps, given Mr. Micallef’s propensity to grimace / smile – a more suiting metaphor would have been a hyena – rather drab, generally perceived as nasty and with a perennial smirk on its face.

  5. Daphne Caruana Galizia says:

    Yes, of course, Jack – you’re right on the maths. It was even closer than that: 750 people won this election for the Nationalist Party.

  6. maws says:

    Dear Daphne

    I am one of many maltese working abroad who travelled to Malta to vote. If the necessity to come back home to vote is truly due to refusal on Labour’s part to allow ballot boxes abroad – I can assure you the difference between the 2 parties lies in 751 voters who might not have travelled to a ballot box in a distant embassy but loved a free holiday back home.
    The result could have been different, fortunately its not!

  7. Roberta says:

    I am one of those who flew to Malta, not for a cheap holiday back home, but to vote for PN because though I don’t live on our beloved island anymore, I want the best for it and I could never leave my birthplace’s future in the hands and at the whim of somebody who is not worth any trust.

  8. Joe Facchetti says:

    Next time around we should all be aware that bad governments can be elected by good citizens who do not vote

  9. Malcolm Buttigieg says:

    A peacock was chatting with a bull. “I would love to be able to get to the top of that tree,” sighed the peacock, “but I haven’t got the energy.”

    “Well, why don’t you nibble on some of my droppings?” replied the bull, “they’re packed with nutrients.”

    The peacock pecked at a lump of dung, and found it actually gave him enough strength to reach the lowest branch of the tree. The next day, after eating some more dung, he reached the second branch.

    Finally after a fourth night, the peacock was proudly perched at the top of the tree. He was promptly spotted by a farmer, who shot him out of the tree.

    Moral of the story:

    Bullsh!t might get you to the top, but it won’t keep you there

  10. Ron says:

    I wanted to vote but due to work commitments couldn’t fly down from the UK by Thursday midnight to pick up my voting document.

    It seems that the person originally delivering made no attempt give us our documents. My family had to go to the police station to collect but could not collect mine without my being present.

    Labour knew many Nationalists wouldn’t be voting and only needed to stop a few more to win.

  11. Athina says:

    Jien nahseb li l-vot taz zaghzagh kien li gabarna min xagharna

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