If William Shakespeare were still around, there is little doubt in my mind that he would be greatly inspired by the comings and goings at the Labour camp.
There would be a plethora of backstabbing and intrigue to inspire a Hamlet, a Macbeth or The Merchant of Venice type play. I guess he would call his tragedy ‘The Five Pretenders at Mile End.’
In its never-ending, long march to elect a new Labour leader, the Labour Party has consigned the party to the vultures. By extending the election to 5 June, Labour has turned itself into a veritable flying circus.
I should say that I found it quite amusing to read the reactions of some of the contenders to the publication of a survey in MaltaToday about how Labour delegates would vote.
First prize definitely goes to Marie Louise Coleiro-Preca, a candidate for the post of leader. She denounced the leakage and asked for an investigation. She insinuated that there were such things as privacy. Rich, I thought: more so, when a politician states such a thing.
Sometimes I wonder if the Labour party is simply out of touch or just not able to get its act together.
Marie Louise, a one-time secretary-general of the Labour party, is shocked at the fact that the list of delegates ended up at MaltaToday.
Should she be so shocked? Definitely not. First of all, in the present state of the Labour party, anything could happen and nothing is sacred. There are so many sources and leaks that the only thing that resembles the Labour party just now is my beautiful pasta sieve back at home.
And there is no figurehead, no charismatic persona to keep the vast jelly of socialist discord together. Alfred Sant is sort of out of it, George Vella is busy supporting Joseph Muscat, and Jason Micallef… well, he still believes he has a role in a new Labour party.
Anyone who promotes the idea that the Labour party is one united family, should really have his/her head examined. The Labour party is, by Cana standards, a very divided family. A family on the ropes.
Marie Louise knows this, as do all the other candidates.
Every day, we hear candidates who reveal how little they knew about what was happening in the electoral campaign. You get the feeling everyone was abroad when the whole campaign was in full swing.
But Marie Louise continues to believe that the world and its politicians should be treated with kid gloves, and that journalists should be sipping Campari and orange with politicians and praising their achievements and promises.
Journalists who are cynical, sceptical and critical should be taken away and dipped into jars of formaldehyde, like specimens in a biology lab.
Worse still: Marie Louise finds nothing strange in the fact that the Maltese political parties have access to all the country’s voters and basically are very much aware of the intentions of every voter, that is if they are going to vote or to abstain.
For example, if Saviour Balzan decided last March not to vote in the last election, Marie Louise would have precise knowledge of Balzan’s decision not to vote and very importantly, she would have the address and ID card of the angry Balzan. That would allow Marie Louise, with some crucial intelligence and of course with good enough reason, to pester Balzan before a general election.
But when it comes to the address list of the Labour party delegates, Marie Louise cries foul and wolf. You see, it is okay if the whole bloody electorate has his details stored in some database at Mile End or Stamperija; but a mortal sin if MaltaToday gets hold of the 900 or so delegates of the Malta Labour Party.
It is very clearly a case of double standards, but it also reveals an inadequacy when dealing with the media in general.
Marie Louise either wishes that we become a Pravda or else simply adorn our front pages with Morena and silly stories about how good or bad her chances of winning are.
Which reminds me of the panic before the elections: whenever MaltaToday would publish its surveys, both sides and sometimes all sides would hit out at MaltaToday accusing it of being in cahoots with someone.
This political paranoia with the media is turning politicians into control freaks. But the first lesson they should learn is to flow with the media not against it.
Disclaimer
Any intention to discredit Marie Louise Coleiro-Preca is purely intentional. And if this opinion has in any way helped another candidate, the author of this opinion column declares that he has not received any monies or any meals paid by any candidate. Furthermore, he declares that if Marie Louise Coleiro-Peca thinks that he is a PRAT, then so be it. It goes to prove that politicians take themselves too seriously and should be taken for what they are: HOT AIR.
