Lawrence Gonzi’s last electoral week has been the source of much discontent. On Wednesday morning he gets faced with a report that reveals his Cabinet intended to discuss introducing fees on public healthcare. That same afternoon, Alternattiva Demokratika publish the findings of an irregular permit issued by the DCC board at the Malta Environment and Planning Authority for Charles Polidano’s Lidl supermarket.
To make matters worse, his injured thumb, incurred in an unlucky fall in between his daily appointments, has transmogrified into a purple bulb of sore flesh this morning, as he bravely shakes hands with me.
But enough of this medical bunkum, and down to the health of the nation. So Gonzi made the strategic mistake of not admitting to having discussed introducing fees on the NHS, and Sant’s bombshell gave him a victory this week: but isn’t it obvious that health cannot be considered to stay free forever and that at some point the PN government did debate this pressing issue?
“It is obvious. I think it is a political decision. My experience is that with health, means-testing does not work,” Gonzi says. “We did discuss it. Four years ago we had a deficit of 10% of GDP, and I asked the ministers to come back with measures that would cut the deficit, control waste and reduce government expenditure. We had suggestions to cut unemployment benefits and university stipends. One of the reports we had, on health financing, was presented to a Cabinet committee.”
This was the policy paper released by Sant, which contains a quote by health minister Louis Deguara urging Cabinet to consider some form of financing for healthcare.
“One of the reasons given for this proposal back then was to cut the wastage in medicines. At that point, my answer was that we should attack wastage, but not in this manner. That’s why I believe in the pharmacy of your choice (POYC) scheme; now rolled out, the POYC is showing us in its first weeks of operation that if we want to cut wastage in medicines, it’s the best tool – and not the system of co-payment and refunds.”
But without financing healthcare, surely these services will suffer in future – to use the sentiment of Louis Deguara’s own ominous warning.
“In my opinion it’s not the right solution. The right solution, the most effective solution, is the POYC scheme: get your family pharmacist as close as possible to you to give you advice. That is the way to address wastage, and not the co-payments system, which was used in other countries, and it is doubtful how successful it was. We listened to the proposal and we did not accept it.”
Now he says Alfred Sant should apologise for saying he lied about the report being discussed in Cabinet. “I am saying my personal commitment in the next legislature is that as long as I am prime minister, I will not introduce a payment on medicines because I feel it is neither ethically nor morally correct.”
His other hot potato for the next legislature if re-elected, MEPA, has also been in for some serious criticism, with the DCC board resigning over an auditor’s report alleging irregularity in the award of a supermarket permit. Ill-timed is surely the right word: the auditor published his report to the complainant, Alternattiva Demokratika, right in the middle of the electoral campaign. Gonzi’s answer is tactically diplomatic now that he has made MEPA reform his personal mission.
“No the report did not bother me. On the contrary, it showed seriousness. It’s how things should be done. Notwithstanding the delicate moment we find ourselves in at the moment, the auditor did his duty. The bottom line is that he made recommendations to change the planning law, and I will be taking up his recommendations in the next legislature. I think he is right. I have no doubt that these people (the DCC board) were surely genuine in their decision. But you can also genuinely commit a mistake. Is there a way of sorting out that mistake? The auditor says there are no provisions right now, so I will be taking up his recommendations.”
A main criticism levelled at him has been his apparent inability in tackling corruption, at least as witnessed by his refusal to accept Jesmond Mugliett’s resignation when faced with his reinstatement of two publicly indicted ADT officials pending their application for a presidential pardon.
“Well, this is the big mix-up in the perception that Alfred Sant is creating, which is very dangerous for our country. If someone is found guilty of corruption, I will not only sack him, but send him to prison. In the case of ADT or the MMA, and the IT tender at Mater Dei, I sent the reports lodged with me to the Commissioner of Police to investigate. Nobody can say that I obliged him to investigate. I told him to investigate. I wasn’t interested in whoever was involved.
“The ADT officials were found guilty in court; the MMA officials likewise; as for the IT tender I cannot comment on the case since it is ongoing; and as for the bribery on the invalidity board, it was a case we ourselves had reported. But because we asked the official involved to resign, his brother took umbrage at our decision and instead turned to the Labour party. And this is Michael Woods,” he says.
Of course, corruption is one thing, and Sant has cast a wide net over his ministers in alleging corruption. The reality could be otherwise: sheer political incompetence and government decisions which raise more questions than otherwise. Why did not act decisively against any so called perception?
“Ok, fine. There could be administrative decisions which you can criticise. But you cannot accuse those decisions of being corruption. You can’t talk of corruption regarding people who were found guilty and paid their dues – action was taken there, so let’s close the chapter. What’s even more serious is that an Opposition leader, who plays the same game he played in 1996, mudslinging left, right and centre, and still he doesn’t have the spine or moral fibre to report his allegations to the Commissioner of Police.”
Sant calls the Commissioner a distraction, a smokescreen…
“That’s a good one! Let’s see if the general public will believe this one. In his eyes, the Commissioner is a smokescreen, the Ombudsman is a smokescreen, the Permanent Commission against Corruption is a smokescreen… is he, by any chance, the only person who is not a smokescreen? Is he saying that we are to have a system in our country where it is the politician who investigates – have I heard right? Are we going back to the time when the politician would favour you according to your political affiliation? Is this what Alfred Sant wants? To me, this is the worst form of socialism – the socialism which killed people inside the Police HQ,” he says in a brief reminder of the 1980s murder of Nardu Debono.
So I ask him about Peter Fenech, the chairman of the Malta Conference Centre, whose company in which he is a nominal shareholder was allowed to forfeit Lm109,000 in outstanding dues to the government; despite the fact that this company is actually requesting payment over and above that very sum from a third party that had leased the company’s same property, the Jumbo Lido in Tigné, which had been built on government land. Asked whether he is perturbed by such a decision, Gonzi appears uncomfortable at not being aware of this case.
“I do not know the exact details of this case, except that I am aware there have been judgements on the case. I would have to check the facts again…” he says. “If he did something wrong… it doesn’t seem apparent to me, but I would have to refresh my memory on it,” and he quickly changes subject: “but I thought we were here to talk about the electoral campaign.”
I put it to Gonzi that meritocracy has never been his administration’s strong point, with many chairmen on commissions and boards seemingly being men very close to the party.
“Our country is a small one so this is an argument that will always be brought up. I’ve felt I’ve effected changes in chairpersons. The truth is that the hot potatoes do not attract the people required to handle them. Certain people of experience I asked to accept positions of chairpersons just turned down the offer. But who could you mention that is ‘close to the party’ who is in these positions? It’s perception.”
Peter Fenech would be one of them…
“How so… if I ask Franco Depasquale to carry out an inquiry, does that make him close to the party?” Gonzi says shifting the argument. Depasquale happens to be a different kettle of fish: he is a retired judge, not a party man.
“Is the chairperson of MEPA close to the party?” he asks. I reply that Andrew Calleja is a friend of the environment minister, even having travelled abroad with him.
“So we have to find someone who we never spoke to, never ate with or took a coffee with them, or never been invited to some wedding of theirs… let’s be reasonable. The argument shouldn’t be this. If the person is doing a good job, then they should stay. If not, they should leave. There certainly are people in high positions who are not close to the party, but I don’t want to stay pointing fingers at anybody. I get Nationalists who complain about who gets appointed to positions, just because they are not ‘close to the party’.”
Even with the coterie of close ‘party men’ who get appointed to boards and commissions, Gonzi’s own Cabinet is one that fails to inspire variety, having been left relatively unchanged upon his takeover with not even a reshuffle for the ministers who have presided over the political scene of the last 20 years. Surely, a minor change would have given him an easier ride when faced with accusations from disgruntled PN voters.
“Because I am not here just to see to those who are disgruntled or not. I’m here to steer this country forward. We’ve had difficult targets which many believed we could never achieve, such as the deficit, the reforms at PBS and Sea Malta, or Mater Dei and the Euro. And yet, all this time we’ve been busy doing just this, and not to give shocks to the system just because the Opposition leader comes forward with unsubstantiated allegations.”
Gonzi says Francis Zammit Dimech had been one of those ministers whose sacking had been well suggested by public opinion. “People said I had to get rid of the minister to improve tourism. I think today our problems in tourism have been solved, because we took important decisions together with operators.”
He brings up his young finance junior minister, Tonio Fenech, as an example of the “new generation” he will be ushering into the next legislature. “That’s what I have done in this legislature, by including the parliamentary secretaries in Cabinet meetings – something never done previously.”
Now metamorphosed into GonziPN – the party that is Gonzi, Gonzi who is the party – I ask him why his veteran ministers have been sidelined.
“Who said so? Yesterday (Thursday) I was in Zurrieq with Louis Galea… so is he out? Hold on – it’s a perception that I can’t stand…”
It’s a slogan, I interject.
“You just said I have not been showing the ministers. Were you there yesterday when I was with Austin Gatt?” (The activity was a government event, not a campaign activity). “And is Louis Galea out?”
You are now boasting that ‘Gonzi gets jobs’ (the PN’s new billboard reads “Gonzi jgib ix-xoghol”, employment actually being Louis Galea’s portfolio).
“Come on, be reasonable. Are you saying I am showcasing them in the morning and hiding them in the evening?”
Your campaign is solely focused on your role as prime minister…
“Can you tell me on who Labour’s and AD’s campaigns are focused if not Sant and Vassallo? So they can do it and we cannot?”
Sant stresses the difference between Labour’s ‘team’ and GonziPN…
“What team? Where’s Joe Debono Grech, Karmenu Vella, Leo Brincat and Evarist Bartolo? Why aren’t these questions addressed at Labour?”
They are being addressed at you.
“I’ve answered. I’ve been with Ninu Zammit, Dolores Cristina, Louis Galea, Austin Gatt” Gonzi says, breaking out into his expressive cackle of disbelief. “I am a party leader after all, not the janitor. And the buck stops here. I shoulder my full responsibility.”
His boldest claim in the election has been his outright refusal to forge any form of coalition with Alternattiva Demokratika, whose electoral battlecry is the creation of coalition government with AD representation in parliament. Gonzi instead warns of “a dangerous situation” with a third party in parliament, as yet unsubstantiated.
I ask him whether the campaign targeting AD, going as far as calling it “a vote for Alfred Sant” would backfire for its seeming intolerance.
“I disagree. I don’t know from where you’re getting this premise. It’s not true we have targeted AD. Why would you say that?”
Your party airs TV spots warning voters that a vote for AD or AN is a vote for Labour.
“We have targeted the economic package for our country,” Gonzi says instead, “which no party has proposed. We have targeted an education package, and those €300 million EU funds from the €800 million total coming to Malta. No party has proposed this.”
I bring him back to the tactic employed at discrediting the third party vote and of why he specifically warns of “danger”.
“AD has invited the parties to form a coalition. We have given it a reply. We targeted nobody. I respect AD’s position – but I wanted to know if it agrees with our policies in education, the economy, the environment, our 2015 vision…” Gonzi says, listing a mantra-like catalogue of electoral proposals. “…I’m saying: hold on, let’s talk about politics. Why should we divert the political debate onto issues of no substance?”
So if you will require AD to govern, will you form a coalition with it?
“Simple. If AD gets one seat in parliament, we would have a Constitutional disaster… because our country would be governed by who has the most seats since the Constitutional guarantee would not apply.”
Translated into layman’s terms, he acknowledges the fact that if a third party gets one seat in parliament, coupled with no one party winning an absolute majority (50%+1) but a relative majority, it’s the party with the most seats that governs. Hypothetically, if the PN required AD’s one seat to govern with a majority of seats, Gonzi is declaring he will not accept that opportunity.
“I’m sorry. In principle I am against. I look at votes – in a democracy, I believe in the majority of votes,” Gonzi says. “To me the criteria is the number of votes expressed by the electors. That is the cardinal principle which only the PN has ever fought and suffered for,” Gonzi says, cueing a snapshot from the 1980s.
“We spent five years between 1981 and 1987 under a Labour government which governed with the majority of seats,” he says of Labour’s controversial 1981 victory (constitutionally legal given that government was formed by who wins the most seats); that year however, Labour did not get a majority of votes, leaving it to govern by the sheer force of the gerrymandered districts.
“We were governed by seats against the will of the majority of the people. We could be looking at this same scenario on 8 March. I am not ready to govern without the majority of the people behind me.”
It’s a scenario which could leave us guessing if a hypothetical AD seat, would mean that it actually gives Gonzi a wafer-thin majority of votes over Labour.
And what happens if he loses the next election, which would put his position as PN leader very much in question?
“Who knows me knows, I rise to the challenge, and I shoulder full responsibility. If I lose the election I take a holiday… a well deserved holiday, and I will enjoy it.”