|
He has very strong ideas on most issues: Fenech sees Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi’s main drawback to be lack of experience and contends that with a completely new leadership the Labour Party will win the next elections hands-down.
Fenech believes Prime Minister Gonzi is following in Eddie Fenech Adami’s footsteps, with the only difference being that now action must be taken to resolve financial problems because EU membership decries that Malta pulls up its socks.
Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi had announced a new way of doing politics, but Fenech does not see it: “I do not see any big changes since Gonzi’s takeover in the way things are being done. The Nationalist Party is not changing its policies. In terms of the style of leadership it may be too early to judge, but don’t forget Gonzi is a creation of Fenech Adami. Gonzi was groomed by his predecessor and both are Christian Democrats, with the emphasis on Christian.
“Gonzi finds himself Prime Minister at a time when the country faces both EU membership and dire financial and economic crises.”
“We - not the Government - are bracing ourselves for some difficult decisions, both as a country and as citizens. For the Government they are ‘difficult’ only in electoral terms.
Other than that, I see no change of political direction, not in the sense, say, of a shift to the left or to the right.”
Unlike many other commentators, Professor Fenech does not necessarily oppose the idea of Prime Minister Gonzi retaining the position of finance minister: “Of course, we cannot know whether he took up the position because he considered its importance, or because there was nobody competent enough to do the job. However, while I am no expert, it is clear that finance should not be divorced from the economy, so in the circumstances there could be an advantage in having finances in the hands of the person who is finally politically responsible for the state of the country.
“Having said that, from what can be seen so far since Gonzi took over, the accountant mentality of his predecessor has been retained.”
Gonzi had promised a new way of doing politics, but Fenech is not impressed and sees parallels between Gonzi’s government and the short-lived one of Alfred Sant between 1996 and 1998.
“There are certain similarities and the attempted introduction of the so-called eco-taxes reminds one of Alfred Sant’s attempt to increase the water and electricity rates.”
Fenech believes that the various U-turns that have punctuated the first months of the new PN government indicate the Prime Minister is new to the tumble world of political responsibility. “There is the element of experience, or lack of it. The job of a Prime Minister is one of the toughest and, the Prime Minister has to be tough. Nobody is born to be Prime Minister….maybe with the exception of Mintoff…lesser mortals have to become Prime Ministers.
“Gonzi took over at a difficult time and one must remember that much of his experience was as a parliamentarian and not in a Cabinet position.”
The attempted introduction of eco-taxes is a case in point. “The Prime Minister never expected such a barrage of criticism and from such diverse quarters. From some quarters it could have been expected, but this time it was, both the opposing political parties, all the social partners and even from the environment groups, who one imagines would have been in favour of the tax, had it been remotely designed to help the environment.
“It would seem that the mistake was that no prior consultation was conducted and then the government tried to cover up by calling it an eco-contribution. The worst thing about the entire episode is that the biggest sinner against the environment is the government.
“Our environmental sins have their origin in official mismanagement. Look at Maghtab. Plastic bottles are harmful to the environment, but will anyone be paying a similar tax for construction waste? And speaking about plastic bottles, we are paying good money for the water we drink. The country has spent millions on reverse osmosis plants and yet so much of it goes wasted because of broken connections and on top of that what reaches our water taps is undrinkable. Maltese households are forced to spend Lm3 to Lm4 weekly on mineral water, something we never had to do thirty years ago. And on top of that the same Government that forces us in this position shall be asking us to pay a tax on every plastic water bottle because we are polluters.
“And has the government not been releasing sewage into the open sea for years damaging the environment and endangering people’s health, just because someone is incapable or too lazy to do something to rectify the situation, beyond sticking notices warning people not to swim?
“A waste dump is allowed to grow to massive proportions in one of Gozo’s beauty spots, and what does former minister Francis Zammit Dimech do? He poses grinning with Gozo minister Giovanna Debono, in front of it for a photo session? Is that not government mismanagement? What right does the government have to impose an environment tax at the expense of its citizens, as long as it remains the worst offender?”
There seems to be a broad agreement among social partners and the political parties that government entities need to be restructured, but Fenech has little praise for what has been achieved so far at the Drydocks and PBS.
“What sort of solution is it to remove people from the Drydocks and put them to work with other government entities? In the long run the nation may or may not benefit from what has happened at the Drydocks, but in the short to medium run the burden has just been shifted.”
Fenech’s eyes shine somewhat when I mention PBS. The longstanding former member of the Broadcasting Authority Board is now a member of the Editorial Board.
“I am convinced Malta should have a national broadcaster of quality and it would be a tragedy if it were to be removed, as it has been suggested from some quarters from time to time. The TV stations run by the political parties do not do us proud. Rather than balancing out different views, the political party stations serve to generate more division and polarisation.”
“The future of PBS is worrying. What took place during the past months seems to have been essentially a counting exercise to reduce the numbers - an accountant’s solution again. It does not appear that the best people - given their abilities and experience - from each department have opted or been chosen to stay on. They should have chosen the best and offered the others retirement or alternative employment, not left the offer open to everyone. A number of good people who have no difficulty finding another job found the terminal benefits offered too tempting to stay on. Then there were others, good ones, who wanted to stay on but for some reason were discarded. PBS had some of the finest journalists in Malta. Now look what happened. But of course that is only part of the problem, and what’s done is done, though I still hope there is time to reconsider in some cases. The bigger problem is the demoralisation accumulated by years of disincentive and political interference, especially in the newsroom. PBS has been going backward for a variety of reasons. For example, outsourcing of discussion and current affairs programmes to hand-picked persons, begun in the days of Roland Flamini, meant that the interesting programmes were given to outsiders, which left the employees without the possibility to be creative.”
The PBS newsroom henceforth will be manned by three reporters on any one day. “Not even a newsroom of a newspaper can be run by three journalists, and a national broadcasting station needs a newsroom not merely to present the daily news, but also to develop current affairs programmes.”
“Now PBS must do more with less. I don’t quite see how that could be done without revising the figures, but in any case, that objective can be reached only if the employees are given full encouragement, with good pay and working conditions and training and above all without undue interference. I’m hoping as regards the newsroom staff that they grow to see the new Editorial Board as an effective defence against any external interference, and of course that we in the Editorial Board have the courage to perform that role. It was the main reason why I accepted to serve on it.
Dominic Fenech was previously part of the administration of the Labour Party, as general secretary, but when I ask him about the party today he ponders: “Are you talking about the Party or its administration?” he says when I ask him whether Labour can relax and expect victory at the next elections.
“The Labour Party, by right should be in government.” A strange statement, Fenech explains: “The blunders started in 1998 when an election was called without a reasonable chance of victory and with enough warnings from inside the party.
“The second mistake following immediately, was to take the attitude that ‘whoever is not with us is against us, whoever wants consensus should go over to the Nationalists’ and the declaration of ‘war war war’ on the PN and the refusal to participate in any way in the discussions on the EU. “These were political blunders of a high order.”
“Anti-EU membership was transformed into a fundamental party principle, so that there was no place for you in the Labour Party if you were not ready to oppose membership tooth and nail”.
Then came the election, and the Labour Party stuck to its guns on the EU, but immediately after Alfred Sant said “we accept this.” If Labour was against the EU it had every right to oppose and do so strongly, but if this was such an important principle why was it so easy to make the U-Turn after the elections? In that case why did Sant not accept the referendum result, and give the Labour Party a chance to govern? ”
The other problem was that too few in the Party were really against EU membership or understood why they were supposed to be against it.
“George Vella was one who genuinely believed Malta should stay out, and was then not among the first to accept the new reality. But it was evidently not such an important principle to Alfred Sant and others around him and an attempt was even made to shift the blame for losing the election on Vella.”
I bring Fenech back to his statement that Labour should, by right, be in government and he explains: “Well the Nationalists did nothing to deserve to be in government in 1998 and since then the PN in government has done little, but to worsen our financial situation. In that sense Labour should still be there, but instead the Nationalists are there thanks to Labour.”
Will the MLP win the next elections: “With a kind of leadership that was unburdened with the responsibility for the mistakes that condemned the MLP to so many years in opposition and that represented a renewed party, Labour would win with a landslide. Just think about it, something similar to Blair’s in 1997, and the PN would find itself in the doldrums. With things staying as they are the MLP may win by a modest margin…then again, four years is a long time in politics. Fact is, Alfred Sant and Lawrence Gonzi are happy having each other as rivals. Gonzi is so happy with Sant as his opposite number, I cannot believe he was sorry to see the MLP celebrating in the last EP elections, which sealed Sant’s continuation as leader. And Sant couldn’t have done Gonzi a better turn than to open fire on John Dalli so soon after the latter lost the leadership battle to Gonzi. They are – how to put it? – made for each other.
Could the recent success of Alternattiva Demokratika be a threat to the major parties, I wonder. “I don’t believe so,” Fenech retorts immediately, “I used to be sceptical of AD at the beginning, now I wish them well as they have proved themselves to be serious and can be trusted. But the same reason that has kept people away from voting AD in past national elections – and the Party always decreased its votes – will remain valid.”
In the coming years some social issues are likely to come to the fore. I mention, divorce, abortion, gay rights and the role of women to Fenech, and whether the EU will make a difference.
“Some of these things will not change unless our culture changes. The EU might help in the long run, but a nation’s mentality needs time to change. One must not forget that the European influence has been felt in our society for many years, through the media but also other factors such as the many tourists who visit us. Remember the first reactions to bikinis in the 1960s! And of course by the sheer passage of time. Let’s think about the position of women. They have a very long way to go to catch up with men, especially in public positions and influence within society, but there is no doubt that the past two or three decades have seen major changes. “At university we have more women graduates than men, a trend that was already visible as early as the mid-1980s. Even if many women tend to drop out of the workforce in their mid-to-late twenties, they are starting off with a much bigger number so perforce many more remain active within the paid workforce.”
While Prime Minister Gonzi has suggested that one of the solutions to pension sustainability would be more women in the workforce, Fenech points out that besides the fact that, that would not be enough as a solution on its own, “there would have to be jobs created, as women like men can only find as much work as the capacity of the economy can offer.”
To accept homosexuality as something normal and for there not to be prejudice against gays likewise awaits a culture change, although already “the fact that more gays are ready to be open about their sexual preferences could be forcing society to become less bigoted on such issues. The recent spectacle of politicians marching for gay rights in Valletta shows that they have calculated that there are more gay votes to gain than there are heterosexual votes to lose by espousing such a cause”.
While Malta remains, with the Philippines, the only country that does not allow divorce, Fenech does not see a change soon. “I believe those that desire the possibility of divorce have several years ahead of them, because parties cringe in front of the electoral costs entailed. Of course, we do have a kind of divorce but we call it annulment, even if legally one is the opposite of the other. In this way we offer a solution to the individual’s problem without changing anything.”
“At the time years ago that the Nationalist Government was negotiating with the Vatican about marriage legislation, the Pope’s envoy reacted firmly against a suggestion to allow divorce in the case of civil marriages, even if civil marriages are not recognised by the Church”.
Fenech recalls the opposition that Alfred Sant faced when he wanted to kick start a discussion on divorce: “There was opposition from all quarters including from his own party. There were those who expected a free vote if it came before parliament. Whatever the reason, the initiative fell by the wayside. You have be someone eccentric, like Emmy Bezzina, to be persistent on divorce. But even if he had not been eccentric, our establishment would have found a means of making him look irrelevant.”
Abortion is Malta’s real no-no and Fenech says even talking about it attracts umbrage. “Even as a subject, abortion is taboo, and we mention it only to inflict political harm, such as the recent PN charge that AD was a fellow traveller of green pro-abortionists. Prior to the 2003 referendum and elections, the MLP alleged that EU membership will bring abortion, and the Valletta party club displayed a large poster depicting a baby and the words ‘Catholic Malta against abortion’. The point is that we do not have a discussion. The discussion stops at being against or in favour. What does it mean to be in favour? That one enjoys doing it?
We could have kept talking till the cows came home, but as a parting shot I ask Fenech about the university and its financial situation. “The university’s financial situation is perilous. Funding has practically remained static for the last six years, yet student numbers keep growing at the rate of hundreds per year, and the University has to absorb new costs. Not enough money is being made available for research and we remain unaware as to whether the money that is needed to continue to provide education at the same standards will continue to be provided. To give one example the university library has hardly purchased any new books except standing orders for the past two years. The Government is treating the University like some money-losing company or corporation, as if it was meant to make a profit and instead is running at a loss. Whereas the University is a productive enterprise, supplying the country with the qualified persons it needs. If you were to calculate the value of graduates in monetary terms the University would be running at a huge profit.”
“Meanwhile, we do our best. If I can be allowed to end on a positive note, my faculty for example, last year had the foresight to launch the first course for translators and interpreters, anticipating a sudden urgent need that few if any were preparing for. And this year we are starting a brand new course in Arabic, with a view to rekindling interest in a most useful language and culture that is full of opportunities, now more than ever, and generally to consolidate the idea of languages as a professional career tool. As elsewhere, more with less.”
|
