Where are the prime minister and the leader of the Opposition?

The true test of a European democracy is not whether it has or hasn’t got divorce legislation, as Joseph Muscat said two days ago. The true test is whether its political leaders understand that they are obliged to speak to their people, to keep them informed, and to disclose information willingly before it is eked out of them by painful and embarrassing means.

The Libyan crisis is a case in point for Malta, a true test of whether it is or isn’t a properly functioning European democracy. But both the prime minister and the leader of the opposition have failed the test – the first because he has not kept parliament and the country informed about developments, and the second because he actually thinks he has a duty to say nothing.

Much was made of the fact that the prime minister has kept the leader of the Opposition informed. But it is not the leader of the Opposition the prime minister should be briefing. It is the country. It is the people who are sovereign, but the prime minister and the leader of the Opposition have behaved like two parents talking behind their children’s backs because they know best. And what’s more, they boast about it.

Neither of them can have failed to notice that the way they treat the matter of information and public disclosure is more akin to Italy – one of the least democratic countries in Europe – than Britain or France or even Germany (may we find it in ourselves to forgive them).

Vast economies like the United States, Germany and Britian have tracked down and publicly disclosed the amount and nature of Gaddafi assets that they have frozen. Germany even declared the precise amount held in one account in its main bank. But Malta has not. Is it because no assets have been tracked down, because secrets are being kept – or simply because, in this substandard democracy, the powers-that-be feel that they do not owe us this kind of information?

After that initial press conference, information has had to be wrested out of the prime minister and the foreign minister by means of persistent questions.

The prime minister has at least shown a willingness to reply, but the foreign minister has been absolutely insufferable. Because they have not been upfront with information and specific statements, they have ended up reacting to speculation and false or incorrect reports.

There is no proactive system to tackle the international media, and the Maltese media have been left to operate in a vacuum, picking up information from the news agencies.

The Maltese government did not even come forward with an explanation when the BBC reported Britain’s defence minister as saying yesterday that Britain can use its “military bases in Malta and Cyprus”.

The Maltese press, despite all the changes that have taken place in this country, still regard information as a favour bestowed rather than as an obligation and a right. Instead of harassing our political leaders with demands for statements, they sit back and wait for those political leaders to do them the favour of speaking to them.

It’s shocking.

The leader of the Opposition has shown even less leadership in this matter than the prime minister. At least we know that the prime minister is taking behind-the-scenes decisions that require strong leadership, even if he falls down on the matter of keeping the Great Maltese Public informed at all times, a particular requirement of leadership in times of crisis. It doesn’t mean he has to be Winston Churchill, but it does mean he has to pop his head out of the window at crucial intervals and tell us what is going on.

The leader of the Opposition has butted out altogether, visiting carnival floats and discussing divorce eferendum questions, as though he is in some kind of parallel universe and the Libyan crisis is not his problem. He does not even feel that he owes an explanation to the people he aspires to govern in 24 months’ time.

“What do you think about Libya, Joseph?”

“I have no thoughts on the matter. I am playing a waiting game.”

This morning was the starkest illustration yet of the attitude problem that afflicts our political leaders. Malta woke up after the UN Security Council vote expecting the prime minister to address the nation, or at least the press.

But there was nothing.

As the internet goes wild with discussion on Malta’s involvement in the Libya attacks from here on in, our political leaders are nowhere to be seen.

I rang the Office of the Prime Minister, to ask whether there will be an address to the nation or at the very least a press conference, which is not the same thing but which will do.

I was told that the prime minister is taken up all day, that he is currently being interviewed by Al Jazeera, and that it is logistically impossible to organise anything of the sort at the moment.

My reaction was not a positive one. It is not as though the UN Security Council vote came out of the blue, I said, leaving them with no time to rearrange the prime minister’s schedule. Why, they had enough time to prepare a speech for the prime minister to deliver, even if it meant that somebody had to sit up all night to do it, though it would have made sense to have written two alternative speeches the previous day: one to be used if the vote didn’t go through, and the other to be used if it did.

I get so cross and irritated in these situations that I have to struggle to contain myself.

I said that this is entirely indicative of our political leaders’ undemocratic approach to what is their obligation to explain themselves to the people. But they regard it as a concession instead, something they might do if they can find the time or if they feel like it.

I said that it is not very reassuring when the prime minister’s first priority in the aftermath of the UN Security Council resolution is to give an interview to Al Jazeera rather than stand before a TVM camera and address the nation’s immediate concerns.

The leader of the Opposition is not taken up with interviews or decisions on military intervention, but he is nowhere to be seen either. Heaven alone knows what his priorities are.

And then he says we are going to be a true European democracy because we shall have divorce. Perhaps somebody should remind Joseph Muscat that they have divorce in Libya.