Habemus Papam and a Gvernasaurus Rex
Published:
March 14, 2013 at 12:55am
“Young people are the heart of this movement.” – Joseph Muscat, March 5th, 2013
Meanwhile, he’s dusted down his fossil collection and put them into a museum cabinet. Of his 14 ministers, a full 11 are in their 70s, 60s and 50s.
George Vella – 71
Edward Scicuna – 66
Louis Grech – 66
Karmenu Vella – 63
Manuel Mallia – 62
Leo Brincat – 64
Joseph Mizzi – 61
Evarist Bartolo – 61
Anton Refalo – 56
Marie Louise Coleiro Preca – 55
Godfrey Farrugia – 52
And then Joseph Muscat said to me, would you like to become foreign affairs minister? And I said, fine, as long as I’m done by my 80th birthday.
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Little Joey talks about ‘youth movement’? Then installs a ‘youthless movement’ as his cabinet?
These old farts are more worried about prostate, erection and peeing problems than the future of our country.
Jeez, even little Joey can’t stand up straight.
We might have to get used to an ambulance on standby outside Castille every time there is a cabinet meeting.
Muscat will score good political points if he nominates a woman for the speaker of the house, which is about time. Anglu is not only unqualified for the job but the country and the MLP will not benefit.
The results shows that many PN voters voted for MLP, so in the spirit of good will, I think a woman from the PN camp would be appropriate.
[Daphne – ‘Many PN voters voted for MLP’. A contradiction in terms: if they voted Labour, they are Labour voters, not PN voters.]
BUT many who voted PN last time opted for Labour last Saturday. Simple maths.
[Daphne – Exactly. They are no longer PN voters. Now they are Labour voters. Calling them ‘PN voters who voted Labour’ is irrational. If I vote Labour, then I am a Labour supporter regardless of who I voted for in the past.]
Labour will put a woman as a Deputy Party Leader and I think it will be Deborah Schembri.
If Joseph Muscat wanted a woman as Speaker of the House, he would have asked Jason Micallef.
Think about it folks. If a Pope can be elected to that position at the age of 76 what is so wrong with appointing government ministers in their 60’s and even at 71 years old? Please grow up.
[Daphne – You cannot be serious.]
He can’t be serious.
Some people are mesmerised with their party like a cult.
If they have any idea what this all means just look at the way Americans voted for Obama – they gave them a free mobile phone.
If ever there was such a campaign which should in reality boost up the Nationalists it should have been the Lejber one – it was so expensive that it only spoke how well the country was doing.
The people misunderstood it and were easily taken from behind because soon all the glitzy parties will fade away.
Frank Scicluna, what on earth does being appointed head of the Super Superstitions Club have anything to do with running a country?
The Super Superstitions Club, with all its defects, runs a worldwide network of homes to help the poor and needy.
No government can ever dream of doing this.
Yes, there have been abuses throughout the ages but I know many priests and nuns who have gone very much out of their way to protect people who suffer. I was reading a book, recently, about 18th century Venice when girls who gave birth out of wedlock were abandoned by their parents. Only with the help of the “Super Superstitions Club” and their convents they could find food and shelter.
By the way, I am not a Catholic Church fanatic, just a fact fanatic.
Might the terror of sin have encouraged the parents to react in this way perhaps? It might benefit one if one looks at the Magdalene sisters, the Roman Catholic institutions in Western Australia and Queensland etc., as well as church successes. This way it might be easier to call a spade a spade.
Well Mr Scicluna, from where can we start?
The prospect of all those over 60s is quite in dissonance with Muscat’s hammering about during the last five years, of a “moviment progressiv u zghazugh”.
These people have rightly earned the moniker of fossils not only due to their age, but also because of their presence in many Labourist legislatures during the last 30 years. Their performance in these same legislatures have been far from encouraging from a governing perspective.
Nobody can expect a person past the threshold of fifty to flip their ideals and convictions upside down, let alone somebody in the political trenches, unless the so-called change in “direction” is dictated by political opportunism.
Mr. Scicluna give us a break! U fejn hu Il- moviment gdid! lol
may I remind you that there are those still within the party that professed to say PN supporters have a different DNA, only 5 years ago.
The proof of the pudding will be in the eating and I can already see the wrong Ingredients have been chosen!
IL lupo perde il pelo ma non il vizio :))
just LOL
Yes, I get it now. It’s because the JosephMuscat.com Movement is more liberal, more progressive than the universal Catholic Church!
Frank Scicluna, the Pope is surrounded by excellent advisors such as, theologians, men of intellect, wisdom and years of experience, Joseph is surrounded by Leo Brincat, Karmenu & George Vella, Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca, Cyrus Engerer, Evarist Bartolo…need I continue?
The Pope and his Cardinals, Bishops etc, administer a Church of 1.6 billion and which has survived 2000 years, Joseph will try to run a country of 400,000 for 5 years (or less*) and by the end of this mandate a number of his ‘ministers’ would be older than the permissible age of Cardinals who can vote fFrank Scicluna, the Pope is surrounded by excellent advisors such as, theologians, men of intellect, wisdom and experience, Joseph is surrounded by Leo Brincat, Karmenu & George Vella, Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca, Cyrus Engerer, Evarist Bartolo… need I continue?
The Pope and his Cardinals, Bishops etc., administer a Church of 1.6 billion and which has survived 2000 years, Joseph will try to run a country of 400,000 for 5 years or less since Joseph promised to resign if his PS is not up and running in 2 years time, remember?
Comparisons can be odious at times, Frank.
I do not recall the Vatican saying anything about a young leader and new faces and then choosing a 76 yr old Pope, but then they probably did not use The Prince as their road map.
The papacy is a quasi monarchy.
A new pope is elected only when the previous one dies or retires due to extreme old age. In the meantime, all the other cardinals get much older ensuring that a truly young pope is never elected.
It is doing the church a lot of harm. People are ready to believe or join a church because prayer and belief is ingrained in the human psyche but they don’t want to join the Roman Catholic church because it seems so irrelevant.
If the church really wanted to attract new fans, it would elect a leader in his 30s or 40s to draw amazing new crowds of young people.
The less democratic a state is, the older its leaders. Saudi Arabia is almost an absolute monarchy. Its leaders are some of the oldest in the world.
In Europe, the least democratic country, Italy, almost always has the oldest leaders. The most vibrant democracy, Britain, has the youngest parliament (the queen has no real powers).
I suggest a twitter share button on your website. Agreeing with this post and would like to share it.
A government of goners.
IL-GVERN TAL-KARTANZJAN
Are you sure that this Frank Scicluna is not Frank Debono from Ghaxaq?
[Daphne – Positive. It’s his real name and he’s lived in Australia since the 1950s or 1960s. He’s often contributed comments.]
As a Zejtun minister of the golden age once said:
“Ahleb Guz”
Referring to the ‘Habemus papam’ bit, we should remember his origins the next time a boatload of desperate humanity reaches our shores.
https://fbcdn-sphotos-e-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/601955_421222367968372_1447816383_n.jpg
I wouldn’t consider a minister in his 50s as too old, especially early 50s. In my opinion the problem with M. L. Coleiro (55) is that she has already been tried and tested, and not because of her age. 52 (youngest minister) is not that old. What do you think?
Apart from the tried and tested part of this cabinet, what hurts most is that JM repetitively spoke about new and young.
Hi Daphne how are you? Did you see the bilboards near the St Venera tunnels with Hamilton travel adverts on them this morning. Malta Taghna Ilkoll u Meshall thobna
Leo Brincat’s Climate Change appointment makes sense. Afterall he knows all the cycles since the Great Ice Age.
They forgot to appoint a Leader of the House. Shows that they are hardly thinking of Parliament at this stage.
Not sure what protocol has to be followed to add this responsibility.
The prime category now seems snugly ‘in’, all radiant and obliging, except for one face, less radiant to say the least, but I admit bold enough not to shake hands.
Dr Muscat was white as snow, perhaps in one moment he realized he was not dreaming anymore but facing reality. Dr Gonzi warned him, yet pompously he kept sneering at him in a debate.
To complicate matters there are an extra 40,000 ‘wounded’ to be healed and rewarded.
I had a call from friends in France and in their typically courteous manner I could feel them grappling to use a softer version to describe the electorate who voted PL in power, naïf was the closest.
In my opinion Dr Muscat is really tired, don’t you think. The weight of government is all on him now…
Average age of this lot: 67
Well beyond pensionable age, but wasn’t it the PN who gave the opportunity to pensioners to work?
Kwistjoni ohra fejn il-PN jahdem u l-PL igawdi.
2014 – George Vella for President.
U jien immur is-Sirja.
I would prefer Lawrence Gonzi for President actually.
The thing about this Cabinet is that you can easily identify who are going to be the troublemakers for Muscat: Herrera, obvious by his attitude yesterday, to say the least; Evarist Bartolo, George Vella and Karmenu Vella, as Muscat did not manage to get them to accept any post other than the ones they held in previous Cabinets.
These are the heavyweights.
Factor in a disgruntled Jason and an expectant Franco, not to mention JPO, and Joseph has the incipient elements of a fireworks factory right under his house. Luckily for him, he also has Godfrey Farrugia, a licensed pyrotechnician.
Daphne, have you read Edward Scicluna’s comment here (http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2013-03-13/news/newly-appointed-ministers-parliamentary-secretaries-reactions-1164541952/)?
“We have talked to rating agencies and assured them that we have a long term plan. By virtue of our roadmap we are confident that the markets will be calmed, just as they were when Mario Monti was elected instead of former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi.”
Is he seriously comparing the Gonzi administration to Berlusconi, and himself to Monti? Seriously? And the media let this go without a comment?
When their ratings plummet they will understand.
Public party financing will lead to newspapers being subsidised as well. Muscat’s desperate to create a ‘consociatovismo’, rule by consensus at all costs.
He’ll bring everything to a halt, anything achieved compromised and ineffective. This talk of the second republic, overkill in regulated democracy will see to it.
Grillo was just the natural consequence of that state of affairs. The PN’s the only way to stop getting there.
Apart from being old (not that there’s anything wrong with it, it’s just in complete contrast to their whole ‘youthful’ campaign), women’s representation is abysmal in two ways.
There are fewer women as a percentage of the whole cabinet than in previous cabinets, and the women were given ‘soft’ ministries like Social Dialogue (?) and Social Policy. So much for the most feminist government in history.
Honestly I care more about correct politics than political correctness. What I’m interested in is good governance that does not interfere with people’s ability to generate wealth (I guess I sympathize with the libertarian principle that the best government is the least government).
I’d much rather have capable people in office than token gender/minority representatives who are there just to appease vague feelings of ‘equality’. Who the hell cares about having a ‘feminist’ or whatever government, anyway? I just want a GOOD government.
Of course, whether the newly elected government is fit for purpose has yet to be seen. So I will judge only by results.
History has shown that voters will often reject the right leader for their country.
We have seen this happen many times, most famously when Winston Churchill was voted out immediately after leading Britain through World War II, and the same with Lech Walesa of Poland after he risked his life and was imprisoned during the communist government that had no democratic elections, so it is no surprise that it happened here twice in less then two decades.
And for those that believe numbers mean something:
Joseph is the 13th Prime Minister of Malta
Presented his Cabinet on the 13th March 2013.(13-3-13)
He could have been the 200th, no superstition
It`s going to be fun bashing this sorry looking cabinet of geriatrics. Actually, I was perversely looking forward to 5 years of entertainment.
We need a daily count down to the next election because time stops for no one.