Another watershed in my life was recorded this week. After nine and one third years as Chairman of the Water Services Corporation during two Nationalist administrations, it was time for me to move on.
Before the March election, I had already decided that I would not be prepared to continue as WSC chairman and I even wrote as much in the Chairman’s message in the last annual report of the Corporation. As I told Minister Austin Gatt when we met about the issue, I believe that no one should be Prime Minister for more than two five-year periods and no one should be Minister with the same portfolio for more than one five-month period. After a time in such posts, seeking new initiatives becomes more difficult and one tends to fall into the same humdrum routine.
My hanging on at the WSC would not have been of any real benefit for the Corporation. As always happens, some initiatives of mine were successful, others not so much; but I like to think that I have left the Corporation in a much better situation than it was in January 1998. But, then, who am I to judge myself?
All things must pass and it was about time that this phase in my life came to an end. The funny thing about these last nine years is that during this time, the MLP did its best to invoke my political “baggage” on the assumption that I was not capable of pigeon-holing my duties as WSC chairman as distinct from my other interests in life, including my writing and my strong opinions about so many issues.
Jason Micallef – who is now unable to realise that it is time for him to seek pastures new – once strongly asserted that the MLP in government would not retain me as WSC Chairman because of my anti-MLP stances in the media. Ignoring the fact that an MLP government would not have retained me in the post irrespective of my activities in the media, the way the argument was mooted reveals a mentality that considers everything in blue or red terms in all circumstances.
This is actually the problem with the MLP, even when one considers the quandary that it finds itself today: they demand signs of reconciliation because they lost the election by a handful of votes while at the same time they keep shouting over the rooftops that they will keep on fighting and opposing the PN government to the bitter end.
The problem stems from the MLP’s inheritance of Dom Mintoff’s macho way of doing politics. I remember that one of the articles I had written way back when Mr Mintoff was at the height of his power was entitled “Dan mhux film tal-cowboys” - This is not a western! I had argued that Mintoff’s “macho” politics had demeaned all efforts directed at contributing to the wellbeing of the country. Everybody’s efforts were instead diverted towards the glorification or the demonisation of Dom Mintoff and his exploits.
Although Mintoff’s hold over his party and over the country are amongst the things that have passed, his influence on Maltese society is not yet over. For example, the five contestants for the MLP leadership found it imperative to attack vehemently the government in their speeches last Sunday, lest the party delegates – whose vote they are trying to lure – think that they are soft and condescending.
So they have to berate Lawrence Gonzi and whatever he decides to do as well as whatever he decides not to do.

Yet, all things must pass, and one hopes that the internal bickering within the MLP and their negative attitude towards anything on which they cannot claim paternity, will pass on as well.
A friend of mine recently likened the situation of the MLP after Dom Mintoff to Yugoslavia after Tito or Iraq after Saddam Hussein. So long as the supremo held the helm, everybody accepted his diktat, whether through fear or through admiration. When he was no longer there, the floodgates opened: “Après moi la deluge!” To the extent that one of Mintoff’s former ministers, Lino Spiteri, last Sunday even asserted that: ‘There are far more people, a host of Labourites included, who wish Mr Mintoff had never been born, than admirers.’
Whoever wins the MLP leadership race will have a tough time to ensure that the party closes its ranks and starts the long march towards its becoming a genuine alternative to the party in power. Yet, instead of thinking on these lines, many within the MLP are wasting time discussing the possibility of a pairing arrangement between the two sides in Parliament, while some short-sighted idiots are even predicting that that the present administration will not last its full five-year term because of the precarious one-seat Parliamentary majority that the Government enjoys.
The irony of this sort of wishful thinking is that the MLP needs a long time to recover and be ready to take over the running of the country following the elusive electoral victory for which they pine so much. The new leader would certainly be shortsighted and inane if he were to think that he needs less than five years to consolidate his position and that of the MLP in the country. The internal situation of the MLP is actually so disastrous that there are some who think that the party needs to be practically re-founded, and not just reformed!
A stable government lasting its full term is therefore in the interest of both the PN and the MLP, even though this flies in the face of the vociferous current within the MLP that includes those who still believe in the Dom Mintoff-style “macho” way of doing politics.
All things must pass: both the term of the current administration that has just started its five-year stretch as well as the present seemingly endless bickering within the MLP must pass!
They will pass in a manner that benefits Malta and its people only if the Mintoff inheritance is dead and buried… and finally passes on into the past!