Marie Louise Coleiro is going to be one of the worst heads of state the republic of Malta has ever had. She is completely unfit for purpose.
Marie Louise Coleiro Preca meets the British High Commissioner: heads of state should be chosen with a view to impressing positively, not negatively, and I don’t mean other Maltese people, fans of whatever political party, or those who think presidents exist to raise money for the Community Chest Fund
I predict that Marie Louise Coleiro Preca is going to be one of the worst and most embarrassing presidents we have had so far, and given Malta’s track record with presidents, including the incumbent, that’s really saying something.
Why the incumbent? Well, that should be obvious, were this country not quite so intent on diving down into its own navel and cuddling up there to navel-gaze from the safe comfort of its interior.
Presidents are not charity organisers, fund-raisers and fun-runners. Their purpose is not to bounce around in shorts, sell oranges and organise flight tickets for Darlene Zerafa. They are heads of state who should be capable of delivering speeches with style, making conversation with grace and ease, have sophisticated manners and poise, know their way around a table setting (and around those seated at it) and who are capable of meeting other heads of state without embarrassing Malta and their position, while representing Malta in the wider world outside these islands.
Malta does not have a head of state to represent Malta to itself and its people. Malta has a head of state to represent it elsewhere, on the world stage.
Forget whether Marie Louise Coleiro Preca is good with children and immigrants, whether she has a ‘social conscience’ or whether she is ‘nice’. Who gives a damn whether she is nice or not? What counts is whether she has any proper manners and conversation and whether she can eat without holding her knife like a pen while exchanging gruff remarks with whoever is unfortunate enough to have to sit next to her at dinner.
She can’t help the fact that she looks like a Slovak peasant, and 55 years of poor bearing and disastrous carriage can’t be undone overnight and can probably not be undone at all, even if she were to understand that they are a problem, which she will not. If she were a good conversationalist, astute, educated and well-informed, with gracious manners, nobody would bother with her Slovak communist peasant image, but tragically for Malta, as soon as she opens her mouth and works her way around a room, she cements that image.
Imagine her on a state visit. “Ehe because de chilrin I giff dem allowins until dey is 23. And den I put on my trek sjut and I run in the President’s Fun Ran. Imbaghad I sell oranges, ta.”
Malta: a world unto itself and a country that doesn’t understand that the head of state represents the state IN THE WIDER WORLD OUTSIDE.
Oh, and another thing. Agatha Barbara didn’t have a husband. She had a girlfriend. But there is a Mister Preca and he’s going to be living at the Palace and accompanying Mrs Preca on state visits overseas and at official functions here in Malta, and we don’t even know what he looks like, let alone what he is.
What is he going to be, anyway – the First Man? The president’s husband? The consort? My point is this: the husband of a member of parliament or cabinet minister has no official role, but the spouse of the head of state most certainly does. So can we get a look at the soon-to-be-president’s consort, please? What does he do for a living? We don’t even know that.
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Jeez, couldn’t she stand up to greet the British High Commissioner?
Start from 4:18 onwards
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cISLHEiKyN0
Was the deal for the Presidency reached before the election?
http://www.maltastar.com/dart/20110206-marie-louise-announces-her-retirement-from-politics
Who said she is a nice person? She is an arrogant person, aggressive and argumentative and known to cross the floor in parliament to go and insult nationalist MP’s while banging on their desks. For god sake she is anything but nice.
[Daphne – I never said she’s nice, only that this is her public image.]
In fact, I remember watching one of the political debates in the eighties on Xandir Malta, when in her twenties she was Secretary General of the MLP.
She was representing the MLP together with another MLP minister at the time. She was very vulgar, loud and aggressive towards the PN politicians.
I tried to look up a video of that debate but did not find anything on YouTube.
I havegreat doubts about her being a President for all people. She is too staunch a Labourite to take Nationalists into her fold.
Sod Mark Sammut, here goes:
Our President Designate has the bearing and carriage of a non-European hamalla.
President of the genetic and social cesspool.
It’s time we, the people, started electing our president – when we do, I’m voting for Baxxter.
Does the fact that she is not from Sliema,make her a Hamalla?
She is the daughter of a good Christian family, her father was a devoted teacher who was loved by the whole village of Qormi, where he taught for most of his life.
I am proud to have been one of his friends,
Good luck Mrs President.
No my darling, she’s a hamalla because her bearing is atrocious, her culture is abysmal, her accent is provincial, her manners are gruff and her charm is zero.
Hardly.
The soap-dish staged stunt did though.
Was there any need for her to render the life of that gentleman miserable by going out of her way NOT to address a word to him afterwards and to have given him no indication of what the camera-backed stunt was all about beforehand?
Thank God he had the presence of mind to guess what was about to happen and pull the relevant set of files out to bring with him.
What Coleiro Preca never did tell the public at that point was that soap-dishes were no longer part of the housing provision policy and that liquid soap dispensers had replaced these on safety and hygiene grounds..
Also, that the same complainant, thinking she could get more of a ride, returned to the Ministry with some other complaint not long after that incident, and Coleira Preca’s people – not the CEO sent to coventry for the remainder of his term there – sent her flying.
I’d say that that incident, on its own, in the current term of this administration – with no allusions to other incidents under the Mintoffian one – more than qualifies.
I have a hard time understanding how that sort of behaviour, with complete disregard to the direct consequences of her actions to that person’s reputation, career and family fit with this supposed justification of Coleiro Preca as “the daughter of a good Christian family.”
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Similarly someone else mentioned “entitlement.” Everyone is “entitled” to enter a bar and order pastizzi or a restaurant of one’s choice, but even there in both cases there is a condition: that one can pay the set price. In a restaurant, any tip is at the discretion of the of the client and conditional on the service. The client is “entitled” to a good meal no matter his or her CV, social standing and degree of professional prowess.
In this case, “service” is conditional on diplomatic prowess, maturity and standing. On sheen, shine and polish. On the positive intangibles wrought for the nation. On enhancing the overall strength and health of that nation.
The decision to appoint and the decision to accept should entail an appropriate measure of responsibility and discretion, fitting with the respective positions, that has not been applied here, primarily because Joseph Muscat is disregarding the responsibilities of office as and when he sees fit. Primarily, because even though he has been elected to office, he is not fit for it.
Consultation comes second to that. In the same way that the role of a President is fully based on that sense of responsibility and discretion towards the nation, the factors involved in this decision – by both Muscat and Coleiro Preca – are not up to standard here.
Joseph Muscat is set to use his Joker card of ignoring “tradition” whenever it suits him. (The Attorney General will issue an fitting interpretation, the Police Commissioner will be “free” to prosecute, the press will say nothing, the Parliamentary majority is a fact and isn’t everything just hunky dory?)
But this should not be about him and his skewed application of meritocracy, but about Malta.
We are hearing much about sovereignty these days. Some thinking should be applied to the constitutional supremacy of the office and role of the President in Malta.
Whilst Joseph Muscat is with one hand making a show of purportedly endowing the role of President with additional functions, he is with the same hand eroding the supremacy of that role by failing to have the motions for ANY change to that role go through Parliament FIRST.
Since when has the Times of Malta replaced the constitutionally elected representatives of the people, its place of business and the measure of respect due them?
If the people and their representatives chose to act in the same manner and with the same degree of disrespect towards that Constitution that Joseph Muscat is manifesting, by equal measure, there would be anarchy.
The Joker card is being flashed around the parametres of tradition and Constitution, as though it were a valid part of the game.
But it isn’t.
A Constitution is meant to defend us from such moves.
There is the law, and there is the spirit of the law.
A President should be able to safeguard that part of the body politic.
The current one is useless, as we have already had ample opportunity to witness, the approval of the IIP scam bill being but one example.
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The wife’s jibe at “Catholics” is more of same.
And I would accept the nomination. Sure, I’d need a First Lady but I’m sure they’ll be queueing with their knickers in their handbags once I’m Master of The Palace, San Anton and Verdala.
She’ll be another Maltese-Obesity trophy.
Indeed. The British High Commissioner is trying hard not to laugh.
Notice the 18th century print of a Maltese peasant? Puts the President-Designate to shame.
That Zimelli engraving is a reprint from Agatha Barbara’s time. History repeating itself, Ms Barbara was also Social Policy minister before becoming President.
Is Coleiro Preca disabled? I’m just trying to guess from her posture.
She is “not fond of ceremonial poses” but she is “a gift to Malta for the 50th anniversary of independence”.
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20140304/local/coleiro-preca.509247
Another gift to Malta for the 50th anniversary of independence is a gas bomb at Delimara.
Some gifts we can well do without, thank you.
Not for nothing does gift mean poison in German.
http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2014-03-03/news/before-accepting-presidencycoleiro-preca-on-the-warpath-4126146561/
It would take a lot to make a worse President than the current.
It’s worse, actually. This was one of her first comments on being nominated President:
“This was never my aspiration and it never crossed my mind to become President. I am not somebody fond of ceremonial poses.”
Well, the words from the horse’s mouth were actually akin to ‘”m’inhix wahda ta’ pozi u cerimonji”, but the true effect is completely lost in translation.
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20140304/local/coleiro-preca.509247
Unless something is done to give the role of president some more importance it should be shelved.
How possible is this?
http://www.timesofmalta.com/mobile/view/20140306/local/perfectly-legal-to-put-president-in-charge-of-commissions-pm.509441
What “advice” has been sought? Is this a case of bypassing the Constitution?
I wonder if the Attorney General has ever been this useful.
Based on Archimedes’ Principle, when an object is immersed in a liquid it displaces an amount of fluid equal to the object’s volume.
According to that photograph may I declare we have a draw?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7ybkDTJofI
C’mon Daphne, deep down you know that she will be a powerful force to heal the rifts and unite the country. Also, her cultural and diplomatic skills are above reproach. She’s a natural.
Well at this point we can consider ourselves lucky it is not Joe Debono Grech or Evarist Bartolo
Breaking News: I have just been informed that Omar the Tentmaker has been retained for the next 5 years to design and build all the ‘ball gowns’ for the incoming Presidentress.
My thoughts exactly. What a disappointment. Just because she has a social conscience, does this make her fit for the role of president? Hardly.
Let’s hope that at least she will bundle up those ghastly blazers, throw them in the trash and invest in a decent wardrobe which will at least make her slightly presentable.
Some people manage to bury the past so successfully. This person owes the Maltese people a public apology for all she did and for allowing her party to do what it did when she was its secretary-general. Ever since she and her gender have been used to the advantage of her party.
Is her husband Edgar Preca her daughter’s father or not?
Thanks, Daphne, and keep it up,
[Daphne – Edgar Preca married Marie Louise Coleiro only six years ago, when she was 50. She was never married before. She had a long affair with a married man and broke up his family. Edgar Preca is not her 20-year-old daughter’s father.]