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Risk assessment is unknown to a government that governs without an opposition, Saviour Balzan writes
The smoking ban is postponed. So it is a big smile for GRTU chief Vince Farrugia and a Thesaurus dictionary for Health Minister Louis Deguara desperately seeking and searching for an alternative word to weakness.
The health minister who is respected for sending lieutenants to do the talking and running away from the battle lines was last seen walking to present his leadership vote at Pieta and telling a Super One journalist, that he would be voting for someone ‘dynamic’ and ‘clean.’ He was very, very close from saying that his voting choice was between a dirty and a clean politician.
It is now final, the smoking ban was not ill thought of, but a simple **** up. It proves that when it comes to risk management this government, which lives without an opposition party, comes in for the glorious special concession prize of ‘un bel zero.’
Louis Deguara said that his ripensimento was not a sign of weakness. If that is the case then why did we have to waste so much time and public money to advertise the news that as from April 5, Malta’s restaurants and bars would be effectively a smoking free zone.
The list of Nationalist candidates for the June elections, is finally materialising. The names feature IVA activists and a former MIC head. Just in case anyone need reminding, let us recall how many hours were spent trying to convince the general public that both IVA and MIC activists had nothing to do with the Nationalist party or the establishment.
It is an open secret that the absolute majority of the activists in IVA including myself were in someway or another linked to the Nationalist party. Linked not in terms of affinity, but in matters of strategy and goals.
The ultimate confirmation that there is more than an umbilical chord to the PN is the fact that the same people who were cursed by the Labour party for being PN stooges are now standing in the name of il-Partit Nazzjonalista. These are the same people who will have to vote with the popular party on issues which are fundamentally regressive most especially when it comes to environmental, family, social and immigrant issues.
Fundamentally there is nothing wrong in all this. But then I hate historical revisionism and some reminding of our inconsistencies should not really hurt. What we need to also talk about here is the impression shouldered by all the European Union parliament candidates of all political hue that they are standing because of the love of their country and their inner sense of altruism. Needless to say, the riposte to all this is a bile driven scream with the final exclamation of the word: HOGWASH.
The vast majority of the candidates have two irrefutable considerations in mind.
1. Running away from mediocre Malta and living abroad
2. The salary and the perks
Other reasons are secondary.
My last thought of the day goes to Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando, the outspoken PN politician who is hoping that the interim landfills at Mnajdra and Hagar Qim do not go ahead and that he will be rewarded politically for his support of the Gonzi line.
Mr JPO did more than mumble jumble something about my last Sunday piece about what I personally thought of the Lawrence Gonzi campaign. It is understandable that a PN parliamentarian who hopes to be kindly rewarded for his support should rigorously defend his patch and utter things that most populist politicians are expected to say to their constituents on a radio station that plays one kind of music for one kind of audience.
Well it is only a matter of time, before Mr JPO becomes part of the establishment and then all those sweet words of dissidence and discord will evaporate into thin air and JPO will fit in with all the other Joe Grimas and apologists in this wonderful part of the world.
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