Appointing Franco wasn’t a mistake
My column in The Malta Independent today – the link to the full column is below.
Criticism of the prime minister’s appointment of Franco Debono as the man who will oversee constitutional reform has been plentiful and sharp. But the bulk of it assumes that this was a mistake because the Opposition will not cooperate with a man like that.
Those who start off from that point are making a mistake themselves, for they have their answer right there and they’ve missed it. The prime minister appointed Franco Debono precisely because he is the most divisive figure possible, the one best guaranteed to galvanise the Nationalist Party into objection on the perfectly reasonable grounds that it cannot work with him. And the Nationalist Party is, of course, right in saying that not just on the basis of common decency (one cannot be expected to cooperate with knaves) but also in a practical sense. Nobody knows better than the Nationalist Party, it having found out the hard way over five years, that Debono is truly impossible to work with, that he is chaotic, obsessive, unpredictable and just not a team player.
The prime minister wanted his appointment to be as divisive as possible, for the Nationalist Party to find his chosen man as objectionable as possible. Had Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando been a lawyer rather than a dentist, Joseph Muscat would have selected him, and done so with gusto.
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http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2013-03-28/opinions/appointing-franco-wasnt-a-mistake-1278640132/
It occurred to me how abusive in hindsight pre-election promises of co-operation are suddenly starting to sound.
Like the actions of a cold and calculating abuser who grooms his victims with false and hollow promises, once the victim is trapped there is no mercy.
Anglu Farrugia summed up Joseph Muscat very aptly in his post resignation interview.
Just watched an episode of ‘Criminal Minds’. ‘Grooming of the naive’. Wonder whether it was filmed on the rock. (bad guy got caught).
Time will tell here.
Those pre-election promises were self-evidently abusive. They were aimed and those who are naturally vulnerable or weakened by the vain belief that here was a man who recognised their genius.
I have no sympathy for any of them. My sympathy is reserved for the other 130,000 who didn’t vote for Muscat but have had him inflicted upon themselves by the self-serving and self-deluded.
Agreed. The aim of the PM is to have a stick with which he can whip the Opposition throughout the period of the legislature.
The Nationalists will find Debon’s recommendations as impossible to comply with, only then for Muscat to start his antics of; the PN is negative, non co-operative, throwing spanners in the works and so on.
It will be better if the Opposition declare right now that they will not co-operate with the Commission while Debono is still part of it.
I don’t know if Muscat is diabolical enough to have planned this out. However he certainly wanted to reward his school chum, and gave him a fiefdom where Franco can do the least harm.
That this appointment would have been similar to poking the PN in the eye would have been regarded as an additional bonus.
Let’s assume that the Second Republic proposal will go down the Referendum route. It is not such a foregone conclusion that the Malta Taghna LOL brigade will win it. I see Joe’s support withering away in direct proportion to the time he is left to meander haplessly from one crises to another.
This government’s honeymoon period is rapidly drawing to a close, and soon it will have to face the stark reality that whilst it’s relatively easy to charm your way to power, it’s not so easy to govern responsibly and wisely.
The future looks very, very bleak.
I think the Nationalist Party needs a schemer at the helm.
To be able to kill the dragon, you have to become the dragon.
With Anglu Farrugia as Speaker of the House, arrogantly selected without even the pretence of a prior consultation with the Leader of the Opposition, our nation will be having the unique distinction of having an “assassinated” Speaker with a knife permanently sticking out of his back, courtesy of his own party leader and his own prime minister.
Well said.
However, one hopes that the reasoning behind a negative vote by the Opposition in favour of changes as expressed in a referendum shall be well explained to the public, i.e. it’s not a simple majority that changes the constitution but two-thirds.
One final note: by the time we arrive at a referendum, one hopes that the gullable Maltese voters who chose this PM would have seen the real Joseph Muscat for what he is, a double-faced charlatan.
Which referendum?
Which negative vote by the opposition?
What referendum could ever displace the entrenched constitutional proviso that a two thirds vote in the House is an essential prerequisite before legally amending the constitution?
I know! I know! We have a party in government that “titnejjek mill Kostitiuzzjoni” and practices “ftit tbazwir llil hawn u ftit iehoe lill hinn”.
Since those evil days, and when it was in its death throes, the MLP had accepted the jurisdiction of the EU courts of justice.
Apart from tme above, Muscat paid (handsomly) for “services rendered”
oh my God! What a diabolical schemer we have been burdened with. Your article gives me the shivers, as you made me conscious of what this nation will be going through very shortly. To me it sounds like subtle dictatorship.
Besides fostering divisiveness, Franco’s appointment is ominous because it serves as a signal to electors (and people in general) that it is fine to put personal gain first, to rashly give into revenge or spite rather than reason.
It’s all fine if the government has ignored ME.
The PL has executed another masterstroke by rewarding him or others of his ilk. A disgruntled voter harbouring a fairly legitimate complaint would feel totally justified to follow suit. If a former PN MP (and a loony one) can get way with it and reap rewards?
Franco has been a great poster-boy for the PL, as he has championed the cry (or should I say, moan) for abstaining, cross-voting and prostituting oneself unashamedly to other side.
Still, one could argue that to change the Constitutuion in a referendum one would need two-thirds of the population in favour too.
How right you are. So many things are falling into their rightful place.
No wonder he ranted that the people will have a say. Vive la difference! Even the promise of MPs’ salaries being relative to their attendance; I’d say to give opposition MPs disincentives, and think twice before thinking of boycotting Parliament. Here we go, back to 1981. Change in direction indeed.
They have us exactly where they want us on this matter. Mate in three, I’d say
Subtle dictatorship indeed. Dom Mintoff tried to destroy all opposition by using violent means; burn down The Times, ransack the home of the Leader of the Opposition, cause havoc on the streets and so on.
Muscat has said that they have learned from their past mistakes, which means that nowadays they cannot afford to be violent.
Now, while the aim remains the same, the roadmap of getting there is different. Things must be done in a very very subtle way.
The wolf has dressed as a lamb.