As far as I can tell – judging from a cursory look at the Constitution – it is the Prime Minister who advises the president the date when to call the election, and not radio or newspaper journalists and other rumour-mongers.
It is no surprise that in this rumour-infested island the theoretical “secret” on the election date was being bandied about, as if it was the date when some pregnant bitch was expected to deliver her puppies. What surprised me, however, is the superficial way in which so-called veteran journalists commented about the matter. The things that were written and said in the media reveal that many commentators seem to be perpetually suffering from a lack of knowledge of facts that one could easily check before putting pen to paper or prattle to microphone.
The present Parliament was inaugurated on 24 May 2007. Its full lifespan ends legally on 23 May 2008 and an election must be called within not more than three months from that date. Therefore, barring an uncalled-for and completely unnecessary constitutional crisis, the latest possible election date is 23 August 2008 that, coincidentally, is a Saturday.
The minimum number of days required to allow for the observance of all the nitty-gritty of the procedures and motions of our electoral process is 33 days. This is not Britain where Gordon Brown can call an election in just three weeks.
The election must be held on a Saturday and conveniently, 33 days before a Saturday is a Monday. For an election on Saturday 23 August, the latest date that the ball can start rolling is July 21.
The earliest an election can be held is now 15 December, in the now very unlikely event of the Prime Minister dissolving Parliament tomorrow, Monday 12 November. I reckon that from Monday 12 November to Monday 21 July (both dates included) there are 42 Mondays – giving the Prime Minister more leeway than many seem to think. So there was nothing really newsworthy in the Prime Minister’s comment that he was leaving all options open.
I cannot understand how any serious journalist expects the Prime Minister to reveal the election date just because he is giving him – or her – an interview. Why should the Prime Minister give up his legitimate freedom to take such a momentous decision when he thinks best, in order to satisfy some journalist’s craving for a scoop? To make matters worse, the journalist who doe not manage to elicit the date then goes on decrying that the Prime Minister “refuses to divulge the election date”! The uncertainty and speculation about the election date was mostly whipped up by the same journalists who then accused the Prime Minister of leaving their premature question unanswered.
An administration that takes up its full legal term of office is not something that should be surprising in any way. This was what happened in 1971 and what happened in 1987. Indeed before Eddie Fenech Adami became Prime Minister early elections were practically unheard of. The 1998 election, of course, was not called because the administration had neared the end of its term of office but because of the very different circumstances that the then Prime Minister, Alfred Sant, was facing.
There is a case for incumbent Prime Ministers to believe that the longer they drag on in power, the more time they have to recover lost ground. The classical example, of course, is Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici who in 1987 did not ask the President to dissolve Parliament but let Parliament die its constitutionally pre-ordained legal death on the fifth anniversary of its inauguration; and then called an election on the last legally possible Saturday. Seasoned election punters – like yours truly – and aficionados of polling surveys are convinced that, in actual fact, KMB was regaining ground and, given another few weeks of reckless abandon, profusely handing out redundant jobs in the public sector and other abusive “pjaciri”, he could have even made it. He did not… and the rest is history.
Zooming on to the present situation and given the above facts, anyone with basic numeracy skills would have concluded that the budget debate schedule had automatically excluded the 1 December possibility as this would have meant dissolving Parliament before all that debate was exhausted. It was therefore ludicrous to imply that the Prime Minister had possibly considered announcing that particular election date, two weeks ago on the Wednesday when he was delivering his response to Dr Sant’s reply to the budget speech. Yet there was even one such front-page newspaper report, complete with headline.
But really, what’s the hurry? Is the present popularity of the Prime Minister and the current PN administration so short-lived that he has to snatch the one and only moment when he can possibly be successful as otherwise…? This seems to have been the raison d’être behind all the speculations in the press, speculations that completely excluded the possibility of the feel good factor generated by the budget speech not fizzling out in a few weeks.
Following the generous budget and the tourism comeback, the commercial community feels that this promises to be one of the best Christmas seasons ever. Upsetting their applecart by calling an election in mid-December would have been a self-wrought calamity for the PN campaign.
Moreover, Gonzi must have realised that taking the plunge so early would raise the question of why he “killed” his administration when, in actual fact, he did not really need to. The speculation that this question would have given rise to, would have probably fatally damaged his electoral campaign.
One such speculation would have centred on the matter of the euro adoption that could create some hassle, come January 1. Had the election been called this year, the Opposition would have been given a free undeserved gift as it would have been in a position to put the cost of living issue on top of the agenda, taking advantage of the natural fear of the unknown. Lawrence Gonzi would have found it impossible to shake off the accusation that the administration is not prepared properly for the shock of the currency changeover and that the people were going to suffer immeasurably for this.
The great expectations for an election this year remained unfulfilled. Whether such a move would have proved the best option, ensuring a victory for the incumbent administration, will always remain an unanswered question.