High Jump
This was my column in The Malta Independent on Sunday, yesterday.
All the talk right now is of Cyrus Engerer, the erstwhile rising star of the Nationalist Party who has pressed the self-sabotage button by joining Labour.
On Facebook, he accused the prime minister of committing political suicide – just as I did, though not on Facebook – and then promptly did the same himself.
Within the Nationalist Party he had the prospect of a stellar career, because he is in the unique position of appealing to a spectrum of typical Nationalist Party electors, and on the strength of that would have had considerable clout within the party machine, but he has chosen instead to be a token black in a party of brontosauruses led by a man who urged us to vote against EU membership, a party which corrals its homosexuals in a pen called LGBT Labour, as though they are freaks requiring special treatment.
If Cyrus Engerer, for whose views I have the utmost respect and whose manners and way of speaking I admire, prefers to be the political equivalent of a circus dwarf at the end of Joseph Muscat’s leash, instead of a real player in a political party where the sexuality of real players is ignored just as it should be, then that’s his choice.
I think he’s made the biggest mistake of his political career and if he persists with it, will live to regret it deeply. I say this not because I am smarter than Cyrus Engerer, because I am not.
It is just that I have lived longer, been through a great deal more, and so my perspective is different. Many people of my age look back at their lives and can see what they couldn’t see when they were in their 20s: the fork in the road at which they stood, and the wrong turning they took, along which they travelled so far that they could never get back and take the right road to what should have been their preferable destiny.
Engerer is at that stage in life where everything seems possible. It is only later that we discover how chains of small decisions, or just one very big one, can shape our future in an irreparable manner.
The true measure of our intelligence is in the decisions we take and how we deal with the consequences, even when we are under considerable emotional pressure – especially when we are in that condition of upheaval.
Engerer’s assessment of the situation is completely wrong, but in his state of upset at the divorce shenanigans and the mindset it has revealed, with which I empathise totally because I feel the same way, he cannot see this.
He has made quick decisions and Joseph Muscat, showing the same predatory predisposition towards the emotionally vulnerable which he manifested against Joseph Cuschieri, homed in immediately with snake-oil sleaze and manipulative talk, the archetypical used-car salesman.
This marks Muscat even further down in my estimation, as I just cannot abide those who take advantage of people who are emotionally vulnerable. A decent man would have said: “Cyrus, this is not the best time to take a serious decision like this. Take some time out and think about it properly before you decide. Then let me know.”
But all Joseph Muscat wants is the headline news-flash and the token homosexual because the Labour Party’s homosexuals are all in the closet and stay there even when they get tied up and found by the police in a compromising position.
Cyrus Engerer has criticised the prime minister for acting against the will of the people, but his response to that is to do the same thing himself. He was voted into the Sliema Council by Nationalist Party electors, not because he is Cyrus Engerer the man but because he is Cyrus Engerer the Nationalist Party candidate.
By switching to Labour he has betrayed them and gone against their express instructions. Resigning from the party and keeping his seat as an independent councillor would have been just about tolerable to those who put him there, but he cannot claim to be an independent councillor when he has said already that he is moving to Labour. That just doesn’t wash and he will feel the full strength of their wrath come next election.
Let’s put it this way – even Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando, because he is exactly the same age I am and so knows better – is well aware that he has no political future with the Labour Party.
Nobody likes a political turncoat, even if the turning is done in their favour. Within the party itself, nobody likes an arriviste who has just crossed over from the other side and thinks that he deserves special treatment or a reward for doing so, when others have been slogging away within that party for years.
Those who believe that Cyrus Engerer will now become a leading light in the Labour Party are foolish. I have lived and breathed Maltese politics for long enough to know that cabinet positions and other senior government roles, even party roles, are cattle-traded not on the basis of intellectual ability or political skills, but on seniority and long service to the party.
The Labour brontosauruses who have strained and gagged in frustration on the Opposition benches since 1987, bar a 22-month blip, will not gracefully step aside to clear the way for Cyrus Engerer to become Minister of Social Affairs or Chief Liberal Adviser to Joseph Muscat. He will find himself as deeply ostracised and invisible as Marisa Micallef is now.
The only politicians who are celebrating this move by Cyrus Engerer are those who would have been his fellow Nationalist Party candidates on certain districts in 2013. He has foolishly removed himself from the field and left it open to them, only to enter another field packed with old bulls who are ready to gore him and leave him to bleed to death.
And that they will do.
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Mr Engerer may have thought that he will use Joe Muscat’s PL to embarrass the PN, but when he grows up he will realise that it was the other way round.
In English they say “cutting your nose to spite your face”. In Maltese the succulent quote is “taqta il b**jd biex tinki lil mara”
I agree with you that Engerer is young and still needs to taste life before actually understanding the implications of his move, but what leaves me open mouthed is the short sightedness of the young leader of my beloved party who seems to have opened the gates for anybody to join.
The PN had once Marlene Pullicino Orlando, Karen Mugliett and others like them who crossed over, but look where they’re now!
These are short-lived spoils who will eventually turn sour to the PL. I demand some more common sense of our young immature leader. I also agree with you that PL will win the election but I have my doubts if it will be a 1998 all over again. Nationalists change fast under pressure.
Unlike Labourites they unite in opposition and quickly undermine all sectors to stir enough pressure on a PL Prime Minister. Now Muscat is making it harder to govern by getting on board Nationalists who will want to share the bounty with Labourites who have been waiting for 25 years.
This will cause havoc.
I’m no prophet but 40 years in the civil service have taught me something. Now you’ll see. John Bundy will want to head PBS, Deborah Schembri will want to be a judge, Cyrus Engerer communications in Castile and many more! Just like Tony Debono did with the Nationalists.
In complete chaos a semblance of order can be glimpsed if only one is ready to be impartial to the events around them. Maybe the old guard haven’t read the writing on the wall yet. Let us hope that new blood is on the minds of more than a few come 2013 .
Did Joseph Muscat promise to Cyrus Engerer that the Labour party will introduce gay marriages?
http://www.maltatoday.com.mt/news/interview/strange-bedfellows-cyrus-engerer
Civil partnerships without the option of adoption apparently.
Which is obviously a non sequitur, u kif tghallimna int dottore, an easy-to-win constitutional case.
Actually, on Xarabank, Joseph Muscat categorically stated that he is opposed to gay marriages. Cyrus Engerer has criticised Muscat over his stand.
No. Just civil cohabitation contracts.
Then what was it that Muscat showed Engerer which excited the latter to convert to Labour?
” Nobody likes a political turncoat..”
Not completly correct, Guido Demarco came to us from another party.
A turncoat is a turncoat whatever his name and surname.
Really? One would never have noticed that.
Probably the wrong example to quote to Daphne.
Coronato Attard, Giovanna Debono’s father, also “crossed the floor” after the 1962 election, thus enabling the PN to enjoy a majority in Parliament. If memory serves, he was subsequently re-elected once or twice in the interests of the PN.
Come on, Silvio – Demarco came to the PN from the Partit Demokratiku Nazzjonalista, not from xi Partit Socjalista. All the former Partit Demokratiku Nazzjonalista adherents eventually joined the PN.
It’s not about the party anymore: it’s about the people.
A political party is only as good as its candidates. While Labour certainly has its fair share of dinosaurs, the PN is rapidly becoming Jurassic Park. The result of this liberal purge–with the exception of a few brave diehards like you Daphne–will be intellectual bankrupcy.
Malta is still a relatively young democracy, so the rules are not yet set in stone: Cyrus’s move may not have worked in the Malta of 20 years ago, but things are different today. The game is changing. Don’t let it catch you by surprise.
Cyrus Engerer has just made it twice as difficult for any gay man or woman to be seen as effective, serious or trustworthy in any political party. A pity.
He could have achieved much more for the gay community within the governing party to get the best deal possible for gays out of the cohabitation bill that’s due in Parliament in a few months.
Labour won’t introduce gay marriage and has repeatedly said so.
Muscat’s strategy for divorce would NOT have seen divorce introduced (with a private member’s bill and a free vote after the next general election if Labour won).
Despite the Prime Minister’s personal beliefs and vote in Parliament, Parliament will have introduced divorce in a week’s time under a Nationalist Prime Minister’s watch and mostly due to his granting a (genuine) free vote to PN MPs which they have exercised.
In just one legislature since 2008, a Nationalist government led by Lawrence Gonzi would have seen divorce and gay civil unions introduced in Malta. How’s that for some liberal substance?
For all his talk, Cyrus Engerer would have been much more effective within the Nationalist Party than he can ever be within Labour.
.
Maybe, Cyrus will look upon this as his wake up call, politics is not his path, pursuing it will hurt him more.
Not even the EU accession got that much exposure in this blog.
[Daphne – This blog started on in March 2008. Malta’s accession to the EU was four years earlier.]
Well, it’s a very interesting issue in local politics: it’s not the usual soap opera material and at least here the issue is gathering some interesting commentary.
This is only beaten by how the local ‘intelligensia’ sees the person occupying the prime minister’s seat should vote after a referendum.
Here you can read my immediate reaction last Friday to Raphael Vassallo’s piece:
http://www.facebook.com/#!/permalink.php?story_fbid=122367174519515&id=585560199¬if_t=like
A point I’d like to make – without taking sides in this issue. If Cyrus Engerer feels that the PM has lost his democratic creedentials by vonting against the divorce bill, what about his own democratic credentials in respect of those constituents of his who voted for him because he’s a PN candidate?
Can Cyrus Engerer have conflict, but not the PM?
I am all for divorce, just in case anyone’s thinking otherwise. Similarly, I believe that Parliament should have completely ratified the referndum result.
On his Facebook page, Cyrus Engerer declares his “current office” to be that of Deputy Mayor of the Sliema Local Council in the 10th District for the Labour Party.
Is that a mistake, or has he already started adopting Labour’s tactics of misleading the public?
Did he not say that he will remain on the Local Council as an independent member?
It’s useless crying over spilt milk; now Cyrus Engerer has gone.
I firmly believe that if the PN makes the neccessary changes it is still in a position to win the next election.
Cyrus Engerer will feel comfortably within the PL only in his private life not the political one since he will feel much at home especially at Super One.
[Daphne – Hardly. This idea that all gay men get along together purely on the basis of their sexuality is off the wall, though I’ll admit that lots of gay men themselves do nothing to trash it by ghettoising themselves in pride parades and pressure groups. People get along on the basis of shared interests and similar experiences growing up, and not on sexuality. If that were not the case, then all heterosexual people would get along terrifically well together. The gay men at Super One are all of a type, or hadn’t you noticed – that’s what they have in common, rather than their sexuality.]
Since you mentioned One, one would now expect Cyrus to do the usual round of appearances on TX, Affari Taghna (who was it who predicted on this blog a “Puffti ta’ success” edition to follow “Nisa ta’ success”?), Inkontri, Bla Agenda and so on…and then a special invitation on Talk, with Mr. Musumeci, on Smash.
We should expect a steady flow of turncoats over the next two years. The odds are in favour of the PL winning the next general elections.
However turncoats will always be treated as such by whichever side they end up on. And rightly so.
Once a turncoat, always a turncoat.
“Nobody likes an arriviste who has just crossed over from the other side and thinks that he deserves special treatment or a reward for doing so, when others have been slogging away within the party for years.”
This was not the case with regards a certain Eileen Montesin. I think you are old enough Ms Caruana Galizia, to remember her attitude towards the Nationalists on the state media.
[Daphne – Eileen Montesin is not a PN activist or politician.]
Although, today, I am not interested in politics anymore I still cannot resist her image. And Dr. Gonzi went as far to let her interview him during an activity on the granaries in Floriana.
[Daphne – Charlon Gouder interviewed him too, as I recall.]
But I was a PN activist Ms Caruana Galizia !
[Daphne – How does that figure? We’re talking about Eileen Montesin, not about you.]
Jien nahseb li dan Cyrus imhawwad wahda nobis. Miskin ghamel zball, ghaggel u issa l-ghaggla gejja fuqu ghax jaf illi wara li kritika lil Gonzi li ma irrispetax lil votanti favur id-divorzju huwa qed jaghmel l-istess kontra min ivvutalu biex qieghed fejn qieghed.
Cyrus din il-bicca xoghol tad-divorzju kien qieghed jaghmilha ma’ erba iljuni minn tal-Labour u ma kienx jaf illi kienu qeghdin idahhluh u johorguh min ghajn it-toqba tal-labbra, u fl-ahhar irnexxielhom igibuh fejn riedu, ghax ma irnexxewx ma’ haddiehor sa issa.
Iz-zmien jaghtina parir. Jien niftakar lil Alfred Baldacchino meta kien man-Nazzjonalisti u ghax Mintoff weghdu li isolvilu il problemi li kellu qaleb.
X`garalu? Meta giet l-elezzjoni la in-Nazzjonalisti ma fdawh u iktar il-Laburisti u spicca mil-politika baxx baxx.
Gonzi, bhalma solvejt il-problemi fl-ekonomija ta’ Malta solvi il problema ta’ dawn il-qabda qlafat li ghandek fil-partit li minghalihom huma xi haga minhabba il-vot differenza li hemm fil-parliament.
I do not hail from the Sliema area. I had never heard of Cyrus Engerer till he was elected to the Sliema Local Council, and even then that did not mean much to me.
Eventually I learned more about him and I formed my own opinion of him – irrespective of whether I was correct or not.
I saw him as a person whose ‘agenda’ was based mostly on ‘gay rights’ and its offshoots.
At the time I did not know that he was gay but, when eventually that came to my knowledge, I understood what he stood for and why.
I doubt if anything else really matters to him; otherwise why would he have chosen to cross sides?
Is it possible that Joseph Muscat managed, in such a short time, to convince him that he (Muscat) was the one with the right answers and solutions to all the problems that he (Muscat) burdens the PN with?
Many young people often think that they know it all, but nothing beats experience and maturity. Cyrus was in a position to push his ideas (the requisites were not lacking). What he needed was patience and perseverance; but rushing from the frying pan into the fire (or even worse) will surely not help him or his cause.
Daphne’s quite right about the perspective one gets from age (and I’m a few years older than she is). At the end of the day, history shows us that anything that was done seriously in this country, was always done by the PN – Uni, MCAST, new schools, Airport, Freeport, power station, telecommunications, broadcasting, banking, liberalisation of trade, roads, EU membership, Mater Dei, democracy . . . modern Malta owes it all to the PN and Eddie Fenech Adami especially.
And yet, people like Marlene, Marisa and Cyrus (curiously, either women or the next best thing) see Labour as their route to power – and they could be right, in the short term.
The question is, are Joseph and his motley crew in it for the long haul?
Personally, I think that Dr Muscat is young enough and, dare I say it, wise enough (whatever Daphne thinks) to know that old style Labour just won’t work. Even Alfred Sant knew this but he made two mistakes: he pretended he had Mintoff on side, when that was never the case, and he sold his soul on VAT’s removal (sic)/replacement.
Joseph doesn’t have the VAT conundrum, or the Mintoff joker. So there you have it, Labour in power with no major worries and no major infrastructural problems. Piece of piss? I rather think so, especially if the PN doesn’t ditch the ultra-conservative cohort that runs it.
That won’t happen in the two years to elections, bit it had bloody well better in the five that follow!
PN are doing their utmost to lose the next general election. They know that the financial situation is getting worse. I’m sure that they have a smart plan – blaming Labour for the country’s bankruptcy.
[Daphne – So Malta is bankrupt. Where have we heard that one before? Ah yes, in 1996: hofor gejjin u sejrin.]
Guido Demarco’s ex-party was a splinter off the Nationalist party – same ideals and aspirations
Do you think that http://www.independent.com.mt should have a readers’ comments section along the lines of timesofmalta.com and maltatoday.com.mt? Some people are saying that they won’t do this as it will reduce the popularity of your online thing.
[Daphne – Are you serious? This site and http://www.independent.com.mt are two completely different animals. This is a blog. The other is an online newspaper. I am always surprised at the level of ignorance about how the media and communications actually work. Also, you can’t just ‘add’ an online comments function to the existing site. You have to design and build the software for a new sort of news-site.]
I am not one for conspiracy theories so perhaps you can offer an opinion why it does not have a comments space.
[Daphne – Because it has to change the site into something else altogether. I do not own The Malta Independent, so I am not in a position to second-guess these decisions. Suffice it to say that common sense should tell you – and your friends – that there is no reason on earth why the owners of The Malta Independent should be willing to hold back the development of their newspaper’s online presence purely to keep me happy, especially when it makes on difference to my site.]
I for one, cannot regularly buy The Malta Independent on Sunday as I am away from Malta most of the time and more often than not read it online. It is a pity that I can only comment here when there are other columnists to whom I would like to give a piece of my mind. No.I will not send a postal letter – too tedious.
[Daphne – You can email. But yes, I agree with you.]
Believe me, I have tried email but nobody from Noel Grima down seems to care to at least acknowledge receipt, let alone answer.
You are implying that I am ignorant about media.
[Daphne – Well, unknowledgeable would have been a better word, perhaps, since ignorance has all sorts of unpleasant (and unintended) connotations. But yes, confusing the function and purpose of a blog and a news site does tend to fall into that category, as does lack of knowledge of the software necessary to build a ‘live’ news site.]
Maybe I am – but let’s ignore your blog for a mo: why is it that all newspapers in Malta have an online comments thing but The Malta Independent doesn’t?
[Daphne – OK, let’s start again. It is not ‘a comments section’ that the other online newspapers have, but a live news site with completely different software. The Malta Independent online does not have that software and operates differently. It does not have the comments option and needs to reinvest in a completely new site built from scratch and organise the administration around it. We are not talking ‘website with comments’ here. A live news site is an independent animal and a separate business with its own management. It is not the online version of the print newspaper, which is what http://www.independent.com.mt is now.]
Is it pure laziness on the part of the people who invest in this business?
[Daphne – The Malta Independent is a private business and any major investment like a live news site has to be justified as making good commercial sense. It must either make profit in itself or drive profit to other parts of the business.]
I would have to disagree with you there, Daphne. Adding a comment system is something they could – without too much effort or investment – do on the platform they currently run. There are a wide selection of open-source alternatives that are built to be simply added on top of a current site, such as Disqus, which is now used by some pretty large news sites. My guess would be that the “it’s so complicated to add to your current site” answer would have been one given by their developers.
That said, you make the argument that it’s not a live website which is highly correct. Adding a comments section would demand moderation – especially in libel-suit-loving Malta. That would be the challenge to solve for them. The technical bit is easy.
Commercially they would need to weigh the added traffic against the salary cost of an online editor and considering the state The Malta Independent website is in a remake would be a better first step.
If The Malta Independent site allowed comments, it would soon be overrun by the same Mintoffian riff-raff that already infests similar sites.
Are you saying that his resignation from the Nationalist Party was also wrong, or just his defection to Labour?
[Daphne – The first was ill-advised in terms of his career, though not wrong in terms of integrity or ignoble in any way. The second is an unmitigated disaster for his career, reflects really badly on his integrity and is thoroughly ignoble. He is also in for a major culture shock.]
I’m with you on the shacking up with Joe’s dinosaurs: a silly thing to do, especially that fast. The man needs better advice.
But if his resignation was also wrong, what would the right thing to do have been, considering his party leader and the party itself are publicly taking (keeping?) themselves in a direction which is diametrically opposed to where Engerer and other progressive liberals like him hoped (and believed) they’d be heading?
[Daphne – His resignation was not wrong in the sense of a bad thing to do. It was wrong for him, in that sticking it out and changing things from within would have reinforced his strength as a politician. He forgets – or perhaps he didn’t know in the first place? – that this is how the Nationalist Party was changed in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and that the individuals who were instrumental in bringing about change ended up the strongest and most influential for years to come. Politiical parties do not change. They are changed.]
as well as George Bonello Dupuis
It’s about time the so call “Independents” on the Sliema Council decided who they are representing. And as far as Cyrus Engerer is concerned he does not represent the Nationalists who voted him into office.
Having declared that he wants to turn (coat) Labour I say “Go home Cyrus!”
http://www.maltastar.com/pages/r1/ms10dart.asp?a=16129
“People are no longer as afraid. They are no longer as afraid to openly criticise the absolutely disastrous performance of this government on Facebook”
Was the goverment performing some show on Facebook?
Facebookracy perhaps?
Engerer said he will work to change some things within the PL. How naive that is – as if the PL will accept change brought about by a lifelong PN activist, who decides to switch sides when he senses his party is going to lose the next general election. As far as I’m concerned, good riddance!
Naive , ill-advised and full of himself.
Cyrus Engerer should be proud to have Ronnie Pellegrini writing on his Facebook wall – that surely is about democratic principles.
“… I remember Ronnie in years gone by. When … Ronnie Pellegrini was in his prime, a sidekick to one of Labour’s most unforgettable nightmares. He was there when Lorry (Sant) bulldozed his way through everything and always had his way.
And Ronnie was not only his lieutenant with direct access to many of Lorry (Sant)’s excesses; but probably quite aware of how, when and how many of those excesses where committed.
That he continued to survive politically, and more importantly, failed to get hammered by the media when he took the role of assistant to Jason Micallef, beats me…”
Saviour Balzan, about Ronnie Pellegrini, MaltaToday, 6 July 2008
Hi Daphne,
Why wasn’t my post/comment uploaded?
Regards,
Al, ka chunky
[Daphne – Which one and when? If it contained the words ‘homosexual’, ‘sex’ or similar, it probably went straight into spam and I didn’t notice it.]
Thank you for replying. Yes it did contain one of those three words…
Ah well, better luck next time!
Al
It is not true Cyrus in PN was ‘Cyrus the politician’ and Cyrus in PL will be “labelled”. That Cyrus was being bandied around by the PN had EVERYTHING to do with his orientation.
PN was giving prominence to him and Karl Gouder purely on the basis of their orientation, to give the impression that, hey we’re not so ‘backwards’ after all.
Obviously, Karl Gouder sees nothing wrong with his own party doing that, but Cyrus did.
Yes, maybe PL may be gaining mileage out of Cyrus’s orientation but at least it has an LGBT agenda (albeit unsatisfactory on some counts). PN has none. Any self-respecting LGBT individual would not vote PN, especially after Dolores and Austin’s comments.
[Daphne – Oh for heaven’s sake, what is ‘an LGBT agenda’ and why on earth do you imagine it’s desirable to be ghettoised in that fashion? Fantastic: Joseph Muscat builds a ghetto and the less intelligent homosexuals, bisexuals and trans-sexuals trickle in, while the smarter ones stay in the mainstream. This is like a hamster who walks into a cage and wonders why he’s still there two years later.]
David II, this has nothing to do with the topic under discussion, and perhaps I’m nit-picking, but I couldn’t help wondering whether you were on first name terms with two cabinet ministers.
Even if you are so close to them (which I very much doubt), don’t you feel that referring to them by their first name is rather rude? Not that you’d care, of course.
In fact, Cyrus is now already just another face in a list of 709 members (as of today) of LGBT Labour Facebook.
The “proset Cyrus, you have balls” comments on his wall are now trickling in at the rate of 1 or 2 a day and attention has turned elsewhere.
[Daphne – ‘Proset Cyrus you have balls’ – so crass. Life in Malta has become just like one l-o-n-g episode of Jerseylicious.]
Proset Dafne you have blogs.