Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory
This is my column in The Malta Independent today.
The inevitable has happened and the prime minister has voted against the divorce bill. Yes, it was inevitable because there was no way that he was ever going to vote for it, and decency and common sense dictate that the prime minister cannot sit out in the parliament bar a vote on a significant bill like this.
As I wrote in my column last Sunday, heroes do not sit on the fence, refusing to vote is sitting on the fence, and those who refuse to vote cannot portray themselves as heroes. I actually have more respect for those who voted No than I do for those who didn’t vote at all.
But still I disagree with those who voted No, and I do so passionately and wholeheartedly.
I disagree with them not only because their stance is utterly anti-democratic – what for hold a referendum if you personally are not prepared to respect the outcome, leaving it up to others to do so? – but also because they do not hang themselves alone. They hang the Nationalist Party with them.
To see the prime minister and his ministers and parliamentary secretaries, with the exception of Joe Cassar, Mario Demarco and Chris Said, vote against the bill was sad indeed, though entirely expected.
They look like stuffed dinosaurs from another era already at this point.
The feeling I get when looking at them is the feeling I used to get some 15 to 20 years ago, looking at the Nationalist ministers who had been familiar faces to me since my childhood in the 1970s – an ‘end of an era, enough is enough’ feeling, the sort of feeling that tells you it’s time to move on, that’s it over, that the tipping-point has come.
All they needed to knock another nail in the coffin of public perception was to vote the way they did. It’s over for them now and they know it. If they don’t move on as individuals, the electorate will move the entire party on and away from the seat of government.
The Nationalist Party has sold itself over the last couple of generations as the party of the new, the party of the forward-looking, the party of democracy and of individual dignity and liberty. And here its biggest and most senior cheeses are today, voting against the clear mandate of the electorate.
It’s disgraceful, but they don’t see it that way.
It’s all about conscience, a conscience that tells them to override and overrule a decision they themselves have asked the electorate to take for them.
What about all the people who voted No in the referendum, the prime minister and others asked? We have to respect the minority, they said, fatuously.
But that is what divorce is all about, isn’t it – respecting the minority who wish to divorce. The minority who don’t wish them to divorce just don’t come into it at all. Whether Mr and Mrs Zammit divorce is not the prime minister’s business and it is their decision to take and not the prime minister’s.
But I’m not going to flog that dead old horse anymore. With their vote, the prime minister and his cabinet, bar those exceptions, have marked themselves out as the past. They are the ghosts at the feast already, and the party still has two years to play on.
The tragic thing is that they have lost their authority, undermined their credibility and harmed their own standing, when they could have regained much lost ground and status by saying ‘I respect the will of the people. I will vote Yes.’
What can I say? I hope the prime minister and his cabinet get brownie points from Jesus on this one, because they’re sure not going to get them from the electorate. Jesus saves, yes, but there are limits.
The prime minister and those who think as he does clearly do not understand that even people who voted No in the referendum prize democracy and understand that a No vote in parliament now is a two-fingered salute to all that. They understand – not all of them, but several to whom I have spoken – that you do not hold a referendum and then carry on regardless on the understanding that others in parliament will do your job for you and vote Yes.
They understand that the prime minister is there to lead by example, and what sort of example is it if he votes No while assuring us that he has done what he can to ensure that others vote Yes?
The prime minister has every right to behave as he pleases as an ordinary MP, but he is no ordinary MP. When he commits political suicide, he takes his party with him.
Nobody really gives a damn how Edwin Vassallo votes, but the prime minister is different.
When people vote in general elections, they choose their prime minister. There is a significant number of electors who don’t bother making a simple and straightforward comparison between the only two options for the role. They will not be able to see beyond the fact that the prime minister voted against the express will of the people whose opinion he specifically sought, and they will refuse to make him prime minister again.
It will not concern them that the alternative is an ex Super One hack who thought that Malta would die a quick death in the European Union and who has been promoted way, way beyond his abilities.
All they will know is that they don’t want to ‘reward’ Lawrence Gonzi for what he has done now, that they want to punish him instead. And the rest of the country will pay the price for that decision, as it did in 1996 when they rounded on Eddie Fenech Adami to the point where even a strange man in a bad wig was seen as preferable.
Gonzi seems to have forgotten that he won only by a hair’s bredth against Alfred Sant, who had been tried, tested and found very seriously wanting. How many people made a difference to his success in 2008? Seven hundred? What chance does he imagine he now has against Muscat?
Not everybody has the imagination or the insight to work out what Muscat will be like as prime minister from what he is like as leader of the opposition, from what he was like as Sant’s top campaigner against EU membership, nor do many have the ability to make deductions and extrapolations based on what they see now of his personality.
I was astonished that people had failed to correctly assess Sant in 1996, but then rushed to the polls to get rid of him when they’d had him as prime minister for 22 months. Nothing that was evident when Sant was prime minister had not been evident already when he was leader of the opposition. They had just chosen not to look and see.
Not everybody thinks as I do, that what with everything and all, Gonzi remains streets ahead of Muscat in terms of ability, competence and trustworthiness. What many others will see, even if they don’t have faith in Muscat, is that Gonzi voted against the will of the people, that holding the referendum was a cynical ploy that failed to work out for him, and that his inability to distinguish between personal opposition to divorce and understanding the need for divorce legislation is, quite simply, inexplicable in somebody of his intelligence, which means that he has probably put blind faith before democracy.
What a shame. Instead of taking this miraculously presented solution to the divorce problem, this deus ex machina, and running with it all the way to victory at the polls, the Nationalist Party has – to use a timeworn cliche – snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.
Do you know what makes me most furious about the prime minister’s decision and that of his cabinet? It’s so egocentric, so self-centred. They care more about their on-again-off-again consciences than they do about the future of Malta. If they really do believe that divorce spells disaster for these islands, surely they can’t think that it will be worse than the Labour government they inflicted on us yesterday.
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But can’t the prime minister do a Marie Louise Coleiro Preca – that is, vote Yes in the third reading, despite his No in the second? She is reported by timesofmalta.com to have said, “According to teaching by Pope John Paul II, when MPs disagreed on the principle of a law, they had a duty to vote for amendments to improve the law. On third reading on the completed bill she would thus also vote in favour.” (11 July)
There you go, the prime minister would then be following on the footsteps of a saint and his conscience can then be shelved once again – until Joseph Muscat, unexpectedly, declares that after he is elected prime minister in 2013, he will present a private member’s bill on gay marriages.
I see it this way. I’ll always be grateful towards the Nationalists for giving us the choice of 27 beautiful countries to choose from if the shit hits the fan.
At this point, the future of Malta is bad in either direction – maybe one is far worse than the other, but I don’t think tolerating this kind of anti-democratic Catholic behaviour will do the future of Malta any good either. What next, I ask.
Gonzi f**ked up big time and if he doesn’t resign as party leader then I will not vote for the Nationalist Party in the next general election – lanqas jekk Muscat jordna il-hmieg ta’ Malta biex jkisru kull ma hawn.
If things go to hell I’ll have an excuse to go live in Germany or Holland – lovely countries where the people are cultured, tolerant and mature, and the dregs of society are hidden away in slummy areas, red light districts and mental hospitals, whereas in Malta they make up 50% of the population and are in your face on a daily basis.
In any case none of my candidates got a place in parliament last election – except Gouder (who wasn’t voted in).
So well written and so sad. I cannot envisage this wonderful country being run by a useless, juvenile, brainless dwarf. There goes the credit rating – move over, Greece.
I will never forgive the AD for campaigning in favour of divorce. They will never get my vote again. The PN will get my vote next time, but it wont go to those traitors who voted YES.
I fully agree with you. I will only give my vote to the candidates who voted against divorce. Many are of my opinion also.
Traitors? For voting Yes? You sure live on a different planet. This is 2011 mate, not 1960. Grow up. This has nothing to do with who you vote for. This was a referendum – you either vote against or in favour.
I will not vote for any of the MPs who either voted ‘NO’ or abstained.
For other reasons I will not vote Nationalist either. On the other side, I still do not have enough faith in Labour to trust them with my first preference. Since I believe it’s my duty to vote, I will therefore vote (as I already did twice) AD, for two reasons.
First because I always agreed with most of their arguments and I sincerely believe that AD can give a healthy contribution to the country’s development and secondly because I think that it’s about time we get rid of this two-party system where we practically give a party the go-ahead to do as it pleases for the next five years.
I sincerely believe that with a possible coalition no party will walk over the people like these two large parties always did. Let’s give AD a chance to prove themselves. Better than just having simply labour or another Gonzipn in power.
It’s our conscience that defeats us.
“Gonzi seems to have forgotten that he won only by a hair’s bredth against Alfred Sant, who had been tried, tested and found very seriously wanting. How many people made a difference to his success in 2008? Seven hundred? What chance does he imagine he now has against Muscat?”
That proves that the Maltese voter is a totally different animal from what you are perceiving.
If it were not for Alfred Sant’s ‘Terrinata’ on JPO’s (Mistra) environmental credentials , the PN would have had another thousand votes with those seven hundred.
Someone then was able to snatch victory from the jaws of a sure defeat.
The irony is that the PN could not dump JPO at the eleventh hour and with some good PR (crying in the Mosta square, TVM press conference) managed to save the PN by a hair’s breadth.
Instead of thanking his PN colleagues, JPO thought that because he got two seats he was in a position to dictate to his prime minister how the country should be run.
JPO thinks we should be eternally grateful to him for not having a St John’s Cathedral Museum and for alienating the country in these times of financial and economic troubles, for a whole year on his private agenda.
I would not be surprised that we will have a Mistra Disco after PL comes to power. With enemies like JPO the PL doesn’t need any friends.
For a moment I thought I was reading “Hamlet meets Munchausen” there …
“Hyperbole” doesn’t even begin to describe this piece.
Unless most people have memories like goldfish, nothing anybody can do can be spoken of in terms of what the Labour administration did during its reign of terror. If, God forbid, the picture you paint is realistic, then the electorate has been right for the wrong reasons. This wouldn’t say much for our intellectual capabilities and discernment.
Once all this divorce “fun and games” has died down it’ll be back to business as usual and most people will be back to their senses just in time for tea.
[Daphne – Hardly. You appear to have forgotten what a damned struggle it was in 2008, even with Lawrence Gonzi on a major high and practically the whole of the youth vote behind him. The situation was so desperate that I insisted one of my sons made the 36-hour, 1300-euro trip from some remote part of Scandinavia, leaving a conference he was leading a day early, and going straight from the airport to the polling-booth. He grumbled like hell because he thought I was ‘exaggerating’ but thought differently when the results were out.]
I was sorely disappointed to hear that the majority of the cabinet voted against divorce legislation.
At the same time I could never bring myself to vote for the Labour Party because they make me terribly uneasy. Apart from all that, I also refuse to abstain during an election (a general election moreover). The only remaining course I can see is to vote for those nationalists who either voted yes or else are not MPs yet.
It’s time to let the new blood in.
In order not to have Muscat in power (and having Malta in the doldrums), the only way forward now is for the PN to split into two parties: the Conservatives and the Liberals. I am sure that both parties would then get more than 50% between them.
[Daphne – Can we give the fantasies a break, please. There is no time to set up two parties. Nor would it make sense, because you’d have one big party and two small ones, meaning that the big party would be permanently in government. I don’t think you’ve thought this through. Two parties can’t operate as one party and approach the election jointly. If they’re going to do that, they might as well be one party to begin with.]
My dear P Borg don’t forget that MLP + AD polled more than 50% between them, but there was no question of them governing, even if they wanted to because the Costitution says that the PARTY with 50% + 1 or the PARTY with most votes gets to rule the country.
I screamed party so that you will realise that it has to be one party and not two.
Your only salvation would be if those who do not want to vote PN would vote AD, and AD got at least one MP, and there is enough jerrymandaring for the PN to have more MPs than the PL. Work on that.
If he was that bothered about divorce then why didn’t he stop foreign divorces being registered here?
Don’t tell me he couldn’t.
As prime minister with a conscience he can do whatever he wants and to hell with the anomaly.
The irony is he made a big point of saying there will be no divorce on his watch and yet that’s all history will remember him as: the PM under whose watch divorced was introduced.
He will be remembered as the Prime Minister under whose watch divorce was intoduced by the opposition + 12 Nationalist MPs. He will also be remembered as the first Prime Minister who voted against the will of the electorate. I suggest he leaves his post asp, and let Mario De Marco take the leadership of the party, together with some liberals.
We all can disagree with anything, to what others may agree with conviction. Respect and accept different opinions.
I honestly do not know why they do not pull the pin now. The credibility of the protagonists has gone. We can look forward to the next two years of them looking for a golden parachute back into the real world after 2013 and opposition-sized pay cheques.
I do not agree that, at this stage, Gonzi is a better alternative than Muscat. In a democracy, democratic values take pole position. Anything else, good governance, competence, etc… come next. Gonzi has, quite simply defied democracy.
So he and most of his cabinet should either stay till the next election, and sink at the polls, or else a clean sweep is needed … and fast!
Also, I must say I admire Cyrus Engerer’s courage an outspokenness on this issue! Reflecting the thoughts of many!
http://www.maltatoday.com.mt/news/national/gonzi-no-longer-represents-the-people-and-should-resign-says-cyrus-engerer
NOT EVEN IF THE pm REMAINS ALONE ON THE ISSUE, NO ONE WILL MAKE HIM DESTROY THE MALTESE FAMILIES. AND FOR THAT I WILL FORGIVE HIM ALL THE WRONGS HE MAY HAVE DONE TO OUR COUNTRY. AT LEAST HE IS A MAN OF HONOUR, WORTHY OF MY TRUST. AND ONE KNOWS WERE HE STANDS WITH OUR PM. FOR BETTER AND FOR WORSE. AND THOSE WHO DONT AGREE WITH HIM ON THIS MATTER ARE ALL VULGAR IDIOTS.
You lot speak as if Armageddon were round the corner. It’s just divorce legislation for god’s sake.
To the prime minister:-
You had already voted No to divorce in the referendum…just like me.
Now you had to vote to respect the referendum result, and you did not. Instead you voted No to divorce once again, while saying that it didn’t matter because you would make sure that divorce legislation got through (but not with your vote).
You had two votes when the rest of us had just one.
“People often say that, in a democracy, decisions are made by a majority of the people. Of course, that is not true. Decisions are made by a majority of those who make themselves heard and who vote – a very different thing.” – Walter H. Judd
First among equals.
Primus inter pares.
This all reminds me of THE HAPPY PRINCE!
I agree with you almost always. This is one of those few opinions which I don’t share with you.
If the electorate boots Gonzi out of office because of the divorce vote, then we will get the government we merit.
An all-inclusive all-incompetent one.
[Daphne – Mark, that is EXACTLY what I am saying.]
Yes, but you cannot blame Gonzi for that.
I will most certainly vote with my conscience in the next election, and my conscience tells me that I will vote for whom I think will represent ME in parliament and not HIS conscience.
Gonzi has proved himself as democratic as Mintoff and Sant.
He has joined them as a member of the “THE HALL OF SHAME”.
I am just imagining John Dalli, with a big smile on his face, biding his time.
Eddie Fenech Adami managed to unite the nation but Gonzi has broken up our party.
If he won’t pack up and go, we will soon be seeing the true Nationalists abandoning him, and that is when John Dalli will make his comeback.
[Daphne – Actually, Silvio, it is not ‘Nazzjonalisti minn guf ommhom’ who are most upset and annoyed about this, but people like me – in other words, the very ones who made it possible for the Nationalist Party to win absolute majorities in general elections, starting from the 1980s, something it had not done since World War II at least. The Nazzjonalisti minn guf ommhom are people who think and behave like the prime minister and his cabinet, and they are the ones encouraging them (jaghtuhom il-habel) to behave the way they’re doing. It’s precisely because they think in terms of ‘our party’, like a band club, that they’re wrecking it. They are whittling it back down to what it was in the 1960s: a party for conservative, religious lawyers who went to St Aloysius College, and conservative farmers who admire their schooling and mistrust Labour. I know you’re a long-time PN supporter, but at least you can see that these mistakes are being made. But as for John Dalli, forget it. He’s way over the hill now and people don’t like him anyway. We need somebody in his 40s, and the only reason I don’t say ‘her’ is because I can’t see a woman on that horizon. But that would be a real coup.]
A woman can never lead the PN. It jars for some reason. Even just thinking about it … although a syntactically correct sentence, it doesn’t make sense. None at all.
[Daphne – Why does it jar? On the contrary, it doesn’t. It would, on the other hand, jar with Labour.]
I can’t offer an explanation. To my mind it just won’t do. A lady prime minister is OK, but a female leader of the PN … can’t even picture it.
Labour came close to getting a female leader. Ms Coleiro Preca contested the electopn for leader last time round. Do you know if any woman contested the post within the PN? I don’t think that ever happened. But I may be wrong.
[Daphne – Exactly how would Marie Louise Coleiro Preca have made a good leader?]
Yes you are right, I am a long-time supporter and was quite active in the past, but I must confess I am very disillusioned and really don’t know what to do come next election. The party would beneifit if it were to spend some years in opposition.
I agree with you completely. I would be the first one to support a woman party leader. Maybe we missed a chance with Dr.Schembri, after a few years of experience.
We have all seen women make good prime ministers and leaders, in various countries and cultures, but unfortunately we in Malta are either too conservative or I don’t know what. I am not talking of only us men, but even you women don’t seem to like voting for women candidates. Maybe someone can tell us why.
[Daphne – Oh, I can tell you why. It’s the same thinking that governs our motivation in every other area, especially earning a living: competition for limited goods, i.e. if he/she/they get/s something, then it is at my expense and there is less for me.
Maltese women don’t vote for other women because male attention, like jobs, contracts, bread, money, is perceived to be a ‘scarce good’ or ‘limited resource’. If some woman gets lots of attention from men, then there is less attention for them, or rather, that attention is perceived as being taken away from them. Some women don’t even realise they are thinking that way, or why they feel so resentful towards women who are in the public eye. Most of the ill-wishing towards me comes from other women. If this were Haiti they would have their voodoo dolls out. Then again, the best solidarity I have is from psychologically healthy women who are secure in themselves, so that has to be said.]
As regards John Dalli, I wouldn’t be to hasty in writing him off. That man has a capacity to survive.
[Daphne – So do cockroaches, Silvio, and we’re not going to see one as prime minister any time soon.]
More chance of a female pope.
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20110715/local/sliema-s-deputy-mayor-has-no-intention-of-resigning-from-the-pn.375680
Cyrus must be smoking some very good ganja if he thinks he is better off in the PL.
He will be better off there, and will find love.
On his Facebook, he’s already got a comment from Helen Cutajar, the one of “ta times” fame…
She says “good decision cyrus we welcome you with open arms.”
Her Facebook page says that she is “EASY TO GET TO KNOW AND LOVING.”
[Daphne – Oh, she’s the wrong gender, wrong social background (the Maltese equivalent of white trash mobile home inhabitant with ‘interestingly complicated’ family arrangements) and wrong IQ. I think Cyrus is about to discover that praise from low-lifes like that is more embarrassing and insulting than any amount of criticism from people like him. Helen Cutajar! Miskin Cyrus.]
There are quite a number of Maltese I have come in contact with over the years that I would be seriously concerned if they thought highly of me.
And the mass migration (or is it a purge?) continues: http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20110715/local/sliema-s-deputy-mayor-has-no-intention-of-resigning-from-the-pn.375680
I rather enjoy the incongruity between the headline and the URL in this story, don’t you?
Mass migration?
Must be because it is the closed season and the hunters are out at sea on their boats doing some illegal fishing.
So right D. I cannot believe the opposition is being given on a platter the government of this nation.
There is no valid justification except the inane mistakes we’re making.
Were it not for the fact that I would hate to bite my nose to spite my face, I would just sit back and say we deserve it.
But, dammit, we do not, and Joey certainly does NOT deserve to be our prime minister, but it looks as if he will be, purely by default. Shame on us. All we Nationalists seem to be doiing is shooting ourselves in the foot..
Once events start rolling it is very difficult to change their course. Looks like we shall finally see underneath new Labour’ s veneer .
“Not everybody has the imagination or the insight to work out what Muscat will be like as prime minister from what he is like as leader of the opposition, from what he was like as Sant’s top campaigner against EU membership, nor do many have the ability to make deductions and extrapolations based on what they see now of his personality.”
Daphne, do you really believe that those who cannot work out what you say about Joseph can work out what it means that the PM voted against divorce as was expected?
I am one of those who believe that the abstentions in the divorce referendum were mostly No votes or else the ones to whom divorce makes no difference. I say so because I am sure that those who really were in favour of divorce did cast a yes vote.
So, whereas the majority of the voters in the referendum did vote yes, and their vote must be respected, this does not necessarily make them a majority of the electorate in the event of the general elections – and I think this difference is important.
[Daphne – I don’t think you get it. You’re thinking in terms of majorities and minorities, but elections are won and lost by a few hundred people here and there. The last one was won by around 750 people. The people who are most upset by the behaviour of the prime minister and his cabinet are my ‘cohort’, the very ones who make or break elections for the Nationalist Party. Last night I was at the US embassy party and the way people ‘like me’ were talking, I knew at once that Muscat can sit back and relax because the Nationalist Party’s landslide defeat is going to be his landslide victory.]
I also believe that once divorce law is in place, we are going to experience its immediate effect, in the next year or so, on something in the range of 10,000 families. That would have an effect on something like at least 40,000 persons including some close relatives, and that is one tenth of our population.
And irrespective of it being a civil right, this is going to involve some traumatic effect. On paper, it is nice, because it is a right. In practice, it may prove to be different. And no one will be able to blame the PM.
[Daphne – I’m sorry, but this was another debate at the party last night, and I don’t agree with you at all. The trauma comes from the break-up of the marriage. By the time you’re divorced, four years after the break-up, it is just a piece of paper.]
You will have those happy newlyweds.
By trauma, I am not limiting myself only to the emotions, which, for marriages that have broken some time ago, would have subsided by now.
Although there is still place for emotions even there, because it is not a given that if one part of the couple now prefers to go for a divorce, the other party will accept it.
I am referring also to the legal process, the costs, the application of a new law, the separation of the wealth, the children and their “guaranteed” maintenance etc.
I am also taking into account that like anything new, the application of the law in those initial one or two years will face numerous problems, including the setting up of the structures, the time to train people etc. and this will surely lead to many frustrations. A bit like VAT in the beginning, and Arriva.
I am a stuffed dinosaur like Lawrence Gonzi. Actually I am an even older stuffed dinosaur. I accepted this ultimate accolade from all my four children a few years back. Quite honestly I have learnt to live with it.
Like most other stuffed dinosaurs I would have been appalled had Lawrence voted yes.
I have not given up though. I feel that we stuffed dinosaurs can still do our little bit for dear Malta.
After all Winnie, Ron and Carol were all seventy years old when they changed the course of world history.
[Daphne – If Lawrence Gonzi and his cabinet thought they were doing their bit for Malta – how, when divorce legislation is inevitable? – then perhaps they will have the decency to wear a hair-shirt in 2013 when we wake up to find Muscat is the prime minister. But I doubt it. People who feel that they are guided by religion are the blindest and most egocentric of all, and they invariably fail to see the bigger picture. In their zeal to avoid committing a small sin they sometimes end up bringing about a great evil. I see this all the time in daily life.]
Anthony, religion in politics is just another ideology as is the case with socialism and nationalism. People who are guided by such ideologies will invariably believe that their beliefs are superior and this leads them to impose them on others.
Unfortunately, countless lives have been ruined in human history because groups of people wanted to pursue some idealistic aim.
“The prime minister has every right to behave as he pleases as an ordinary MP, but he is no ordinary MP. When he commits political suicide, he takes his party with him.
Nobody really gives a damn how Edwin Vassallo votes, but the prime minister is different.”
Could not agree with you more on this statement.
Do you still consider Cyrus:
”Cyrus Engerer – a rising star”?
Do you believe ”the Nationalist Party has any sense”?
I am curious. Personally I think that Cyrus had all the credentials to bring a breath of fresh air into local politics. I don’t even mind him leaving the PN at all. But come on! Join the other party on the same day is utterly disgusting and is a lack of integrity in my view.
PL seems to have become a ‘skip’ taking in whatever comes its way and I may understand that too. But a young guy who ”seems” to have some decent sense in him and switches on to the opposite party in a day is blasphemy and will surely be punished by any one with some political decency.
You could vote the PL for all I care, and good for you, but Cyrus should be out of the pick.
I admired him a lot and even wrote in support of his political activity but today’s switch was no less than pure hypocrisy.
Shame on you!
Again, not for joining the PL (which I may very well vote for next time round), but for being so dammed opportunistic!
That is not what we said about Wenzu Mintoff and Tony Abela, when they left MLP and joined a group later known as AD. As a matter of fact we applauded them especially Wenzu Mintoff who became the first and last AD MP in Maltese History. Hopefully he will not be the last.
AD was not the PN, it was the middle of the road not the opposite side of the road. AD was born mostly because of the MLP’s roughshod tactics within the party that’s why Toni and Wenzu crossed to and fro like a shuttlecock from one party to the other.
People wouldn’t have been appalled if Cyrus went with AD.
I was one of those people who cried for Malta when the result of the 1996 election came out. And I was also convinced, when Labour chose Joseph Muscat as leader, that they were determined to stay in opposition for many more years to come.
But at this stage, irrespective of insight or foresight, this country needs a change. At any rate, given the dearth of quality of the alternative, I wouldn’t be surprised if that change were just a hiatus to give the PN a breather to clean, organise, and modernise itself. History can, and often does, repeat itself.
Follwing the arguments being made about a strong possibility of a PN defeat come next elections because it might lose a section of the liberal vote, it seems to me that the assumption is being made that this is the only vote that matters.
Well, one should not forget the Catholic vote. This has been taken for granted in times past because “all Maltese are Catholics anyway”. This is not the case anymore. The current climate is ripe for Catholics to make their presence felt as voters, as happens in the US, where out-spoken Christians can have a determining influence in elections.
The Labour Party’s latest strategy might alienate the Catholic vote, while Gonzi’s actions have certainly consolidated it, and possibly attracted Catholics who are normally MLP voters.
I would not underestimate the strength of the Catholic vote. After all, like every other group of citizens, Catholics have a right to influence society, including with their vote.
My understanding is that someone who voted No at the referendum can vote for a PN candidate that voted No to divorce in parliament.
I suppose that is the ‘Catholic’ vote.
Sorry I forgot to ask if those MPs are evenly spread across the districts?
If they are then my theory holds.
They are evenly distributed. The party made sure of it. As a matter of fact, where possible you have one candidate for the Yes, one for the No and one abstained from each district.
When it comes to the Catholic vote, the Church might influence the PN voter, but it will niether influence the intelligent (floater) voter and will never again influence the PL voter, because they can remember the 60s and the apology which followed.
So most probably the PN will lose its liberal voters who would fall under inelligent (floaters) which usually have the greatest effect on the final result, keep its religious followers and maybe gain a few religious voters from PL, who might also decide not to vote rather than vote for Mons Gonzi’s nephew, since there is no love lost between MLP and the Gonzi family.
It does seem like damage limitation from a party preparing for opposition.
An excellent piece by James Debono:
http://www.maltatoday.com.mt/blogs/james-debono/gonzi-s-hara-kiri
They said the introduction of divorce would lead to fewer people getting married, but it’s happening even in The Philippines, where 37% of babies are born out of wedlock. In Malta the figure is something like 30%.
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20110716/world/Marriage-going-out-of-fashion-in-Philippines.375784
Are there any social stigmas in Malta these days, particularly among the lower classes?
Unless he means something else by “conscience”, Debono slips up in the first paragraph.
“This shows that his conscience is triggered more by matters of religion than by matters of state.”
For a Catholic, the conscience is God’s “notepad” in his (or her) heart. It’s where he tells us what is moral or immoral. It’s our duty to keep an informed conscience.
I can’t see how it can be “triggered” by matters of state, other than to discern between their im/morality.
Nowadays in Malta it is very advantageous for a woman to have babies “out of wedlock ” as far as social benefits are concerned. Try listening to some Super 1 phone-ins with some proud granny bragging on how her 16 year old granddaughter ended up being a single mother because, “eqq, ma tawhiex job kif spiccat mil-iskola.”
Gonzi was so cocksure the No side would win he didn’t even bother with a plan B.
And they say Sant is the expert at getting it wrong.
I like the “on again off again conscience” bit.
Our PM apparently has an a la carte conscience.
It does not bother him at all when government pockets hundred of thousands of euro from credit card transactions from pay-porn sites or gambling.
It seems rather more hypocrisy than conscience.
But the Curia never tweaked his ears, as far as we know it.