It’s largely invisible, totally cut off from the grassroots and mingles more with the upper echelons of traditional Nationalist fine society than with anything Labour.
Defying the populist stereotype of the hardcore Labourites, mostly propagated by Nationalist pundits in the English language press in their bid to immortalise Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici’s “aristocracy of the working class”, the mostly silent left-wing upper class is foursquare behind Alfred Sant as much as the noisy MLP delegates.
So close they are to the Labour leader – despite a decade of electoral fiascos since he lost power – that the end-of-year surprise announcement of his illness came as a devastating shock to this little group of loyal yet cerebral followers.
The barrage of questions and anxieties that his major surgery raised just as he was diagnosed with colon tumour served only to panic them even more about the prospects of going for an election without Sant – a bleak scenario that would have alienated them just at the moment when power was within grasp.
As the hours and days slowly passed before the decisive medical test results arrived from the UK’s Royal Marsden Hospital, the exceptionality of their dear leader couldn’t come out clearer as they saw his two deputies taking over for his brief period of convalescence.
There was Charles Mangion, notary by profession and justice minister under Sant’s Cabinet who had to resign after not following correct procedures when recommending a drug offender’s release from prison.
While his resignation had actually raised his integrity profile given the absolute lack of culture of resignations in the corridors of power, Mangion faces the Labour elite’s mistrust for his notarial services with big business.
The other deputy, Michael Falzon, is the total nemesis of the Labour high class. Suspicious and suspect, to them he signifies utter superficiality, primitive superstition and intellectual backwardness, useful only to mobilise the masses in election time but otherwise a veritable liability whenever he opens his mouth.
Case in point was his mind-boggling outburst against his own comrades when he “authorised” – his own words – the police commissioner to investigate other Labour officials about a harmless anonymous letter.
Sant himself had shed suspicion beyond reasonable doubt about Falzon’s affair with the infamous “viper” who allegedly used to leak embarrassing stories about Labour to the Nationalist press.
Falzon impersonates total embarrassment for the high class reds. His overindulgent references to the Holy Virgin in public meetings, his rhetoric about “in-namur tan-nar” (the passion for fireworks) and his furtive hunting trips abroad with notorious hunting lobby activists are quintessential examples of his mediocrity.
Problem is, Falzon is influential with a sizeable segment of Labour delegates, hence his internal stronghold that keeps him hanging on despite his constant overreactions.
The fascination with Sant lies precisely in his atypical political persona: secular, intellectually brilliant, a man of letters who has left his mark in the nation’s literary and dramatic corpus, totally alien to inconsequential chit chat and socially aloof, the Harvard PhD bears a grudge towards the good and the bad of the southern Mediterranean way of life. It is surely a case of reversal of historical roles, with Sant resembling more Borg Olivier and Gonzi somewhat more Mintoffian in his populist appeal, a folk leader who is perfectly at ease with the masses.
Since Lino Spiteri’s resignation from the party, Sant has remained the only intellectual light in the party, the only rational voice in a party inundated with platitudes and totally devoid of ideological debate.
Surrounded by a veritable motley crew, the upper middle class Labourites support him because he has somehow kept everyone in line and discarded the liabilities along the way, while letting others sink in their own failures, starting from Emmanuel Cuschieri to Jimmy Magro.
Within the party, the closest comrades include MEP Joseph Muscat, considered a valuable up and coming contender for the leadership.
Once dubbed as “Sant’s poodle”, Muscat has nowadays made a name for himself in Brussels. Cut off from Sant’s coterie, he has established himself as a fiery defender of Maltese citizen’s rights in the European institutions and an articulate ideologue of new Labour.
Evarist Bartolo also forms part of the Labour high class reference points, although being very close to Sant meant that he would not sacrifice his friendship and risk his head to contest for leadership after the 2003 election disaster.
Karmenu Vella, Sant’s special advisor and former tourism minister, exudes confidence and attracts sympathy across classes, while MEP Louis Grech is an attraction to the upper class thanks to his moderate positions and eloquent finesse.
Yet, besides Sant, the power grasp of the Labour elite remains ephemeral, short-lived as much as the 1996 government, unless Sant’s own conception of New Labour can be transmitted beyond the figure of one person. A Labour defeat in this election would pose all the problems of succession one would associate with old regimes, and like with most regimes, the intellectual circles are bound to be the most disenfranchised.